SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

There are 2 questions that i am especially struggling with:

how long has the A been going on? and

should i talk to the spouse of the OM?

Some context for my questions:

We've been married for 10+ years and have two children, ages 8 and 5. Most of the problems in our marriage have been minor and in-law-related, but almost exactly 4 years ago I noticed something had changed in WW's behavior and our relationship. In an argument that I still to this day don't understand, she seemed to be going way out of her way to destroy our relationship, such that I wondered whether she was motivated by an A that she had been having or contemplating. Eventually - this argument lasted for days - I mentioned to her that I was wondering this. She ignored my question for awhile, until (again days later) I mentioned that I felt hurt that she still hadn't even bothered to acknowledge my concern one way or the other, at which time she finally stated that no, she was not having an affair. Nevertheless, it's been clear (and she has said it herself many times) that ever since that time she has not felt the same degree of love for me.

(In case you're wondering, my supposedly unforgivable sin was that my parents and i spent a half-day with my son at Disney's Hollywood Studios against the express wishes of my WW, who didn't want DS to experience any aspect of Disney outside WW's presence. WW has a thing for Disney - she and I had already taken the kids to two Disney parks and had plans to return with both kids about 6 months later (though not to the Hollywood Studios park). My parents and I simply thought it would be a fun way for DS and us to spend the day. I thought WW was being unreasonable and unfair to DS - I mean, who would deny a four-year-old boy an opportunity to visit Disney? - and that the argument was ultimately just kind of silly. When we returned that night WW spent an hour screaming that our marriage was over, throwing things, slamming doors, etc., all within earshot of our children, while I just tried to calm her down and explain what I had been thinking. If this version of events sounds too unbelievable and thus unfairly one-sided, I'm sorry but this is probably the one argument where I really can say that I don't think I did or said anything wrong. (Indeed, I didn't say much at all. I was just a combination of stunned and concerned about what my kids were hearing.) Also note that WW had been invited to go on the trip - WW simply refused because she doesn't like spending time with my mom (and I can't blame her - my mom is not easy to get along with, which is one reason why we only see her a few days a year).

In the time since, I have requested on literally hundreds of occasions that we see an MC. In response, WW has threatened separation/divorce time and time again, saying that counseling is pointless because the marriage can only improve if i become more like the way she wants me to be.

So fast forward to yesterday. My wife was about to leave for a few days (and nights) to attend a couple conferences, located back-to-back in the same hotel. Something smelled funny about it, and after picking up a couple clues that she was planning this "work" trip as a getaway with some OM, I confronted her about my suspicion. She denied it, but the nature of her denial only made me more convinced. It's since become obvious that not only was I right to suspect her, but that the OM is someone I know very well: her longtime former boss. He was her supervisor beginning soon after we got engaged. After years of a good working relationship, he left their employer to start his own company with some friends. Six months later he hired WW to join the new company. In the years since, the company has done well and WW has, too, ultimately getting promoted to the senior most position held by any woman at this small but successful company. Things were going great. Over the years, WW and OM had become terrific friends. He was a kind boss and generally seems like a good, family-oriented guy (kinda like me). He has a stay-at-home wife and two nice kids, a few years older than DS and DD. The families have gotten close. We've celebrated Thanksgivings together, weekend vacations, numerous religious holidays, the works. His wife has always acted in a somewhat standoffish manner, but generally friendly and has welcomed us into her home on many, many occasions. OM we see all the time. WW and I even moved to the same town that OM lives in. We're just a couple minutes away and bump into them around town often even without trying.

Six months ago WW suddenly decided she would leave her job. She told OM of her plans before she mentioned it to me. She applied for (and ultimately got) a lower-paying, less prestigious job but she justified it to me by saying that she no longer wanted to work for one of her other supervisors at the company where she otherwise got along so well. She said that the new job offers a chance at fewer hours and superior benefits, both of which kick in once she puts in about 3-4 years. It seemed sudden and weird but I've always supported her career choices 100%. She started the new job two months ago. She does not seem to be particularly happy with it. It's located near her previous job, however, so despite working at separate places she still carpools with OM and goes to lunch with OM and the various friends they have in common.

During the last 36 hours it's become about as obvious as can be that WW and OM have something going on. It's not just a friendship anymore. The evidence I have is purely circumstantial, but I've known WW for nearly 20 years - I can read her like a book and she didn't help her case by suddenly deleting all her text communications with OM just a few hours after I hinted that OM was the person I suspected her of having an A with. There's simply no way that there's not SOMETHING going on, and even the MC who we met with for the first time this afternoon made clear that she didn't believe WW's denials.

WW wants to focus entirely on her and my unhappiness and the things she says I've done to cause that. I'm not perfect, but I've been at worst a decent husband and an excellent father to her kids so I don't really take any of that too roughly. WW unfortunately has made it clear that she does not see a future for us. Right now we each have as our foremost concern that we find a way to work out a solution that doesn't hurt our kids. I don't want to divorce but I don't want to be with someone who no longer loves me and who, frankly, has been incredibly demeaning and controlling for the last four years especially. If she doesn't come out of this fog then there's really nothing left of our marriage to salvage.

I feel as though I can't make any decisions about how to move forward until I know - what exactly is going on, and how long has it been going on? i have a hard time believing that it didn't start at least six months ago, when she suddenly decided that she should change jobs. Has it been much, much more than that? Two years? Four? I even wondered briefly whether DD is necessarily my own. To what extent have my wife's complaints about me actually been all along her attempt to justify her own bad behavior? Her own mother, with whom she's incredibly incredibly tight, has still not been able to move on even a little bit from the affair that WW's (now-separated) father had around 20 years ago. Clearly WW's feelings about her own conduct have been drastically influenced by how she has processed the damage caused by her father's A - damage that remains a raw subject and a major topic of discussion in her family even today. I've pleaded with WW to try counseling regarding it, but as a rule she has remained resolutely opposed to any assistance that requires her to look more closely at herself.

I need to know more about what WW has done. I need to know what exactly I'm dealing with. But WW is stubborn as a mule and refuses to acknowledge a thing, no matter how ridiculous she comes off. How can I get this information out of her if she won't give an inch?

MC suggested that I seek out the other source of information: OM. OM and WW have clearly been conspiring and strategizing relentlessly over the past 2 days - maybe he's more willing to be open about it, but I doubt it. He has even more to lose, because his wife presumably doesn't know. So should I talk to OM's BW and let her know my suspicions and what little evidence I have left that WW has not already gotten rid of? I think OM would believe me and I don't think she'd be angry at me. But I don't want to cause her and especially her children any misery. But I feel as though WW needs to be prodded in the right direction, and pushing on the other end may be the best way to go about it. I also believe that if I were in BW's shoes, I would want to be warned about what OM and WW were up to rather than find out years later that I had unnecessarily spent additional months or years being cheated on.

What do you suggest?

Welcome to SI. I'm sorry you had to join our club.

You definitely need to tell the OM's BW. Mostly for the reasons you listed, but also because it's possible that she may know something about it that will help put the time frame on it for you or help you figure it out. (She might be suspicious but not have enough info to prove anything, and together you might be able to piece it together.) It will also give you another set of eyes watching them. Do NOT tell your wife you are going to tell his wife though, whatever you do. That will only give her time to warn him and he will make to a story so his wife won't believe you.

I, too, struggle with unanswered questions that haunt me daily. It seems like the only way to find the answers we are seeking is either through playing detective with phone records, bank statements, etc or with a polygraph.

Others will be along shortly with good advice. I'm still a newbie myself.

Digifuwill,

The affair IMO more than likely started 4 yrs ago and that was one of the reasons your wife was able to rage about something as petty as a trip to Disney. She was projecting her shitty behavior onto you.

And yes , your best way to find out more info is to talk to his wife , I think his wife has suspected something for a very , very long time, hence her being standoffish in your wife's presence.

Your wife has been gaslighting , blameshifting for years..She has wanted you to believe any infraction from you has eroded the marriage to the point of no return.

I know you mentioned your wife commutes with OM , if she ever does the driving I would put a Voice activated recorder in her car , I'm pretty sure you would get a glimpse into what is discussed on these drives .

CDB

[This message edited by Charliedeltabrav at 3:22 AM, April 21st (Friday)]

Digifuwill,

Sorry to see you here, but there are lots of people who can advise you from their own experiences of going through the same thing. From what you describe, it does look like your wife has been having an affair, and possibly for a much longer time than you realise.

This seems quite significant:

“Six months ago WW suddenly decided she would leave her job. She told OM of her plans before she mentioned it to me. She applied for (and ultimately got) a lower-paying, less prestigious job but she justified it to me by saying that she no longer wanted to work for one of her other supervisors at the company where she otherwise got along so well. She said that the new job offers a chance at fewer hours and superior benefits, both of which kick in once she puts in about 3-4 years. It seemed sudden and weird…She started the new job two months ago. She does not seem to be particularly happy with it. It's located near her previous job, however, so despite working at separate places she still carpools with OM and goes to lunch with OM and the various friends they have in common.”

The change of job makes no sense, and her reasons seem utterly bogus. Do you think the supervisor or another member of staff caught them, and so your WW had to leave to prevent word spreading? It’s very convenient that she found a job almost next door to the old job, so she can spend so much time with the OM. Something happened at work that meant they decided it was best your WW left the office.

“So fast forward to yesterday. My wife was about to leave for a few days (and nights) to attend a couple conferences, located back-to-back in the same hotel. Something smelled funny about it, and after picking up a couple clues that she was planning this "work" trip as a getaway with some OM, I confronted her about my suspicion. She denied it, but the nature of her denial only made me more convinced.”

Definitely contact the OM’s wife and ask her where is at the same time as your wife is supposedly at these conferences. It may turn out that he has to be at exactly the same events. Funny how these coincidences happen.

Exposure is the best way to kill off affairs. If your wife still remains solely focused on herself, mention it to her family and see what they have to say about her behaviour. I don’t imagine they will approve.

“To what extent have my wife's complaints about me actually been all along her attempt to justify her own bad behavior?”

To a great extent. She’s gone out of her way to find fault with you, and she still presents herself as a victim in a situation that she has created. Her irrational raging is more likely her own messed up emotions about doing something that caused such damage in her own family, and she is taking that out on you.

There are various things you can do to try and find out more. You mention that your WW and the OM car-pool. As Charliedeltabrav says, if they do that using your wife’s car, you can put a VAR (Voice Activated Recorder) in the car and see what they talk about on the drive to work. I’m sure people here can advise about things you can do. But the most important thing to do now is to contact the OM’s wife, tell her your suspicions, and find out if he is attending any ‘conferences’ at the moment. I’d be willing to bet that he is.

Definitely talk to the OM's wife. There's a reason why your wife suddenly quit her job at OM's company. Perhaps his wife found out something and gave him an ultimatum. "Get rid of her, or else." And as a result they've taken their affair underground.

Is it possible to organise a PI to do a bit of snooping and following while she's at the conferences?

I'm going to go against the grain here and say don't' tip your hand any more than you already have. If there's an affair going on, you'll drive it even further underground. So, no... without supporting evidence, I would not speak with the OM's wife.

There are myriad ways you can gather evidence, including hiring a PI to do it for you. There are entire books on the subject you can buy online. You can check phone and financial records, paying special attention to whether calls or transactions were made out of area. Depending on wiretapping laws in your area, you can place VARs (voice-activated recording devices) in locations where they will pick up conversations. Affair partners TALK.

All that said, you don't have to get actual evidence to decide you've had enough and walk away from the marriage. You could see an attorney and file under irreconcilable differences. If you're prepared to actually end the marriage, you can insist that unless/until you get the truth, you're out. It usually helps when you bluff and say you already have the truth so you're just giving her the opportunity to prove she can be honest. I wouldn't recommend this as a tactic unless you're truly prepared to end the marriage though.

[This message edited by ChamomileTea at 5:28 AM, April 21st (Friday)]

I couldn't disagree more. Unless he can get his hands on her phone to run text recovery on it, approaching the OMW is literally the best tool in the world.

If it goes south (unlikely) then he still needs to do the same things ( VAR / GPS / PI )

He could contact the OM's wife at any time. But if his own wife has an out of town conference coming up, why would he tip his hand and put her on guard before it? If she's cheating (and he has no evidence thus far that she is), an out-of-towner would be too much opportunity to miss.

I hate to disagree with Sharkman and some others on this issue, but I think on balance Chamomiletea is right. If you tell the OMW the upside is you can compare notes and get valuable information. But the problem is there's no way to control her reaction - if she confronts OM then it could drive everything underground. And my view is that the "notes comparing" exercise can wait a short time and become Step 2 in the process.

It seems to me there is a lot you can do first to unearth information before driving things underground. You can recover deleted texts from her phone before she "accidentally drops in water and has to trash it." You can place a VAR in her car and see what she is saying to OM on their drives to work. You can go through her emails on her computer. All of that will be more difficult if this all blows up when OM's wife confronts OM.

I'm sorry you're going through this and have to spend your time on this sort of nonsense digifuwill. I mean - seriously - when guys like us got married can you believe we'd get to a point where we're posting to anonymous people trying to figure out the best way to spy on our wives and find out who they've been having sex with and for how long. It's nuts.

I also just wanted to add that I feel your pain on your story about Disney and the loud argument within earshot of the kids. Brother been there done that. Honestly it doesn't matter who was right and who was wrong. I get your point of view and I understand your WW's but honestly who gives a shit. That's not how spouses should be resolving issues. You're supposed to treat each other respectfully and talk things through. I can't count the number of times my xWW would yell at me and I would beg her to just lower her voice so the kids wouldn't hear. Sometimes I would tell her that I'd need to walk away and we could continue when she calms down, so that the kids wouldn't hear, and she would say I'm "running away from the problem". Argh!

Hang in there my brother. I know you're getting different viewpoints on your question about notifying the OBS. There are folks around here much longer than I. I may be wrong and I'll be interested in hearing other points of view.

Best of luck.

I have to agree that you don't have enough evidence to talk to OBS yet. The call you make to her will rock her world , so you better have something concrete otherwise she confronts him with nothing and he denies it . Then she more than likely wouldn't be receptive to future communication. Keep digging.

Voice activated recorder in her car would give you answers in one day.

A private investigator following her at lunch for a week would catch her. Or if PI follows her to conference.

You've put up with a lot of stuff already. You know she's cheating. You just needs "evidence" for some reason. So it is easy to get evidence. When you get it, and you yell, "Aha, I got you," and she says, "So what, you're a terrible husband," and she takes your kids to her mother or calls the police to file a false domestic violence against you, what will you do?

Put the voice activated recorder in pronto and put the PI on it, in the meantime get an attorney and get ready for a likely vicious divorce.

She sounds like a bully.

Thank you so much for all your wonderful feedback!

I had been leaning against saying anything to BW, but have decided to go ahead and do it.

This morning WW confessed that, yes, she has developed strong feelings for OM. She says she only realized them upon leaving for her new job.

Clearly she has at the very least communicated this to OM, otherwise she would not have deleted her texts with him prior to me ever singling OM out as the object of my suspicion. I feel like it is the ethical and strategically wise move for me to at least share this info with BW. Maybe I can give her a chance to prevent an A (on the off-chance that it is not already ongoing), and together we can put the pieces together to find out what's what.

WW left this morning to return to the conference. Yes, he's there. Indeed, one of the biggest clues I had was that I dug up the attendee lists for each of the conferences. OM is not even registered for the earlier conference. WW is not even registered for the latter one. Yet they traveled together for the former and planned to return together from the latter.

I messed things up for OM and WW by getting her to come back home that first night (OM was the one who drove her back home - I'm curious if he stopped by his own home before returning to the conference or continued to keep that info secret from BW) but now it appears that they're trying to salvage at least one night (tonight) of their planned getaway. WW won't commit to when she will return - just that it will be "very, very late" and that she will sleep at her mom's house, where she scheduled a sleepover for the kids, rather than come straight home. Among other things, I'm hoping that BW will be able to force OM to return home early.

And yes, one of the biggest issues WW and I have had over the years is that she is an absolute bully and something of a control-freak.

[This message edited by digifuwill at 7:45 AM, April 21st (Friday)]

You need to see a lawyer today. She is having an affair, holding the back of your neck and forcing your nose into it.

Seeing a lawyer is critical as he or she will advise you of your rights and what actions you can legally take in your locale. And from a more human standpoint, it's a (very) clear indicator to her that you are not going to stand by and be the third wheel in your own marriage.

This situation, and the utter lack of respect your WW shows you, will continue as long as you allow it to continue. You have zero control over your wife. You have 100% control over your own life. Don't be a doormat. Nobody respects a doormat.

If the kids are at Grandma's, what's to stop you from showing up at the hotel and seeing who's in his/her room? Or calling Grandma to see what time she came in?

[This message edited by ChamomileTea at 8:41 AM, April 21st (Friday)]

Sorry didnt have time to read all the responses but wanted to say that I would bet the om's wife discovered the affair and forced her husband to fire your wife. It's common to make a condition of reconciliation to have a job change if the ap is a coworker. I insisted on it. I'm betting his wife did too.

I'm guessing (like me) you are the last to know of the affair.

I believe that the chances your wife has not had sex with the OM are very slim; given all the circumstances you detail. It's probably been going on for years. And as a result, she has all but checked out of your marriage.

I agree with the posters who advised you not to contact the OM's wife until you have solid evidence. There's just too much that can go wrong in that scenario.

Stop confronting your wife about this. Be patient. Use the techniques that have been advised. I caught my WW by putting spyware on her phone, a key logger on her computer, going through her cell phone records and recovering deleted e-mails.

After you find that smoking gun; then you confront and expose.

[This message edited by badmemory at 9:24 AM, April 21st (Friday)]

I totally agree with ChamomileTea. Moreover... along with the bullying and being a control freak... if she is having an affair/affairs why would you want to remain married to her?

If adultery/allienation of affection is grounds for D in your state... why not surprise her at the hotel with camera in hand?

I don't think she will confess on her own. She will probably only admit to things you already know, so you need to learn more. The VAR in the car is a great idea, check cell phone records, best would be if you could show up at the hotel.