SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

All we can tell you is that once you confront, she will either come clean, but with a priority on minimizing and withholding as much info as she can, or tell you you're imagining it all.

In any case, she will promptly destroy all evidence she can and take it underground for awhile.

Don't tip your hand, NEVER reveal your sources, keep copies of everything somewhere safe, never admit what you know, let her do the talking.

The point is to keep her in the dark as to the extent of info you have. Tell her you have been watching and documenting her for "a while". ( if she asks "How long", that's a big red flag) Ask questions that make her wonder if she will be caught in a lie if she doesn't answer correctly and truthfully.

She needs to know that a lie means automatic irrevocable divorce ASAP.

[This message edited by twisted at 11:12 AM, October 3rd (Tuesday)]

twisted - seems like so many on here are ready for immediate divorce. Why not try and work it out? Or am I just a huge man-baby?

If she continues to gaslight, and or lie, demand that she consent to a polygraph. If she refuses, ask her what she has to hide? You really sound like you can't move past her behavior to work on your marriage, until you know the full extent of her relationship with the OM.

If you care to share, how old are you both? How long have you been married?

LM2017 -

Me...mid 40s.

Her...late 30s

Polygraphs don't work. Kinda junk science. I wouldn't do that to her anyway. I figure...if she can't tell me the truth under threat of actual divorce...the marriage is over anyway.

twisted - seems like so many on here are ready for immediate divorce. Why not try and work it out? Or am I just a huge man-baby?

It can come across that way and maybe some people are like that but really what you will find here is that people are for getting out of infidelity as soon as you can. Think about infidelity as a form of abuse. You would never tell someone that was taking a physical beating to keep taking it while trying to convince the person hitting them to stop. You should think of infidelity like this. The advice here is to stand up for yourself and start getting out of infidelity. You can of course offer a chance for your WW to come clean immediately, stop all contact with the OM which is going to mean leave her job and start repairing this marriage. That does in fact sometimes work. But it works rarely. Most of the time you have to knock the person off of the fence they want to keep sitting on by moving forward out of infidelity.

If your WW refuses to admit what you know to be true or tells you she just can't decide yet what she wants or worse tells you that it is all your fault and how you need to improve to get her to drop her BF. Then you really have no choice. Start moving our of infidelity which means file for Divorce. This doesn't mean get a divorce. That takes time and can be pulled back but let her know that you are moving on, stopping the abuse so to speak, she can join you or not.

I’m not saying it’s time for this yet, but serving papers shows you are serious about not putting up with her infidelity.

Serving does not equal divorce. The process can be stopped at any time if true remorse from your spouse shows up.

Here’s my point of view. Your wife may or may not have been physical with this Piece of Shit (POS). However the few msg’s you have seen show a familiarity that should be reserved for husband and wife. I would not remain in a relationship where my wife felt it was ok to co verse this way with another man.

I don’t mind her having male friends, but I would not flirt with other women and I would not stand for her doing the same.

And now you know they also plan to “lay low” and wait for things to blow over and then start up WHATEVER they were doing again.

If you can log into your cell account this online and see if the messages are stored there. A previous poster has said this can be done on Verizon. Possibly others to.

So here is the bottom line. The posters here that have the most success at saving their marriage are those that take control and don’t stand for any monkey business when it comes to infidelity.

So what does that mean. Well it does NOT mean begging and pleading. It means knowing that you cannot control her, but you can control your reactions to her.

So I would say “we vowed to be each other’s one and only til death. That means we will not give our bodies or heart to another. I am extremely uncomfortable with your relationship with POSOM. it is your choice to remain in this relationship with him, but not as my wife. I love you and want a long life as your husband. But I cannot be with you if you can take actions to break or damage my heart and not care about it. So I will be working to get out of this infidelity. I hope you come with me, but if you don’t that is your choice. You are supposed to care about my feelings above all other. It hurts that you obviously do not at this point. “

Then take the appropriate actions. If she is defensive there is nothing you can do to change that. You can only take the next steps to separate yourself from her infidelity.

Read THE 180 From the HEALING LIBRARY here at this site. It will help you support yourself during this rough time. Get yourself into counseling to work on the pin she has caused.

If she is Remorseful for her actions then maybe you can start working through this. But then you should probably each start individual counseling IC to work thru this, her on how she can her the one she loves and go beyond her marriage vows and you to work on the pain she has caused.

She will have to go no contact NC with him and that will mean finding another job.

Take care.

[This message edited by Stevesn at 11:29 AM, October 3rd (Tuesday)]

seems like so many on here are ready for immediate divorce. Why not try and work it out?

It's something you can't really see yet because you're super new to the affair world. I highly advise you to listen to the people here, they really do know what they're talking about, and they're not wrong. You are following a very clear betrayed spouse line of thinking and actions -- which is understandable -- and the good people here are trying to guide you through that.

That said, no one here is advocating "immediate divorce." In fact, as you know, "immediate divorce" doesn't exist. It will take months or years.

Instead, many people are advocating "immediate steps toward divorce."

The reasons for this are not easily seen for people who aren't far along in their processes, but they are actually very simple. Proceeding *toward* divorce, getting those papers, taking those steps and *really* knowing that you'll follow through with it as long as your wife is actively in another relationship (which she is)...that's the only way out of infidelity right now. Anything less than active steps *away* from your cheating wife is simply a green light for her to keep having her "favorite guy" as a boyfriend.

You can stop the divorce process at any time -- you'll have months or years to change your mind -- but we're hoping you'll start taking these steps asap to GET OUT OF INFIDELITY.

I don't want to give you the impression that taking steps toward divorce is a way to "trick" your wife into stopping having an affair -- in reality, it's really a way for you to move out of infidelity, which is hopefully your primary goal. If she chooses to join you, and you allow that, great! If not, then you're already well on your way.

But I also will tell you that, if you take these (and other) clear steps out of this awful infidelity situation you're in, *and* you really mean it *and* it's for your own health, dignity, and overall well-being...well, you may be surprised in the changes you see in your wife.

If you opt for the "talk it out" option, forgive her for everything, take some of the blame on yourself...I'm sorry, that just doesn't work. She'll never stop cheating on you. D-day #2 will be right around the corner.

So in a nutshell, that's why people are encouraging you to go this way and not another.

Polygraphs don't work. Kinda junk science.

Not true. More often than not, if the wayward spouse taking the polygraph has something to hide, you may get a 'parking lot confession'. You may believe they are junk science, but perhaps your WW won't. Please don't eliminate this tactic as an alternate means to get the truth from her.

Do I need more evidence? I do have the text and call logs for three months. I did share what little I had from the texts I did see. I do have her admission that they "may have flirted" and there were 'other things' that she wouldn't share.

She guards her phones like a lioness guards cubs. Thoughts? If I jump the gun...it may be the only one that hits me in the face.

By the way, if my wife called someone else whom she was flirting with her FAVORITE GUY, I would be talking to a lawyer the next day.

You are not in her mind her number 1.

Whether or not she will admit it to herself she is having an affair.

If there are things she won't share then you need to start divorce proceedings. You want to work it out, and I want that for you too, but you absolutely can't work it out if she's going to conceal the truth from you. From the minimal texts you've quoted here, and the fact that they're coworkers, so very close proximity to each other, I'd say there's a 90% chance this is also a physical affair. That's the part of the texts she deletes or won't share.

As we said you can work to get the texts from the phone company. If you can get her phone you can run Dr Fone on it to retrieve deleted texts.

If she is not giving her phone to you on demand then it’s just as bad as reading the texts themselves.

You could Velcro a VAR under her car seat and listen to whom she talks to on the way to and from work.

See if she has chatting apps on her phone like WhatsApp or games that have texting like words with friends.

Going out with work friends should only happen if it includes you.

OneRoad, I think you misunderstand.

Until you expose or confront, you have no real idea what your wife's intentions will be. No one here want's to see a divorce, believe me!

However, there is a goal here, to get you out of infidelity. Hopefully that is reconciling, but if the spouse refuses to give up the AP, or continues underground, or decides the AP is their "soulmate", etc. than the option of divorce is left.

Being Plan B, if the affair doesn't workout with them riding off into the sunset arm and arm, is not an option.

Many people here have said that to be willing to save the marriage, you must be willing to lose it.

You cannot "nice her" back into the marriage by doing the "pick me" dance. She is either committed to the marriage, or she is not. It's black and white, not a degree of gray. Many WS( wayward spouse) try to play along and keep their options open. Nope!

OneRoad, from what you've written, I'd say there's a very, very good chance that your wife is in the midst of a full blown affair (emotional and physical). The only way you're going to find out is by asking. You already have the proof (700 text message, won't let your read them, protecting her phone... red flags).

I thought the same way you did about a polygraph. If it ever got to the point at which I felt a poly was necessary, the marriage was already over.

Ask her for her phone and for the password. If she refuses, you have your answer (she's having an affair). Ask her for the passwords to any and all social media. If she refuses, you have your answer. I would also look into your finances, as well, her credit cards. See if there's any unusual there. If she refuses to give you access, you have your answer.

[This message edited by Unhinged at 11:48 AM, October 3rd (Tuesday)]

Why not try and work it out?

To work on a marriage you have to have a basis (aka a starting point.) You can't even get her to talk about it without her shutting you down. Until your wife is open and honost with you... you are merely talking to hear your gums flap. It takes two to save a marriage and as you describe your interactions with her... she is showing no interest in interacting with you. I think the only way you are going to get your wife to talk to you is to have irrefutable proof. Otherwise you will be gaslighted till the cows come home.

The big question you have to ask yourself is IF you know for sure that this is a PA... would it be a dealbreaker. All the circumstantial evidence that you have revealed here is a giant red flag that this is a PA. Don't give her ultimatums that you are not willing to enforce. That will only make you look weak in her eyes.

I personally would like to see you acquire for information, although some here will disagree on this tactic. For me, and I think in your case, to get irrefutable facts and proof, makes the potential for waffling about the truth from her much more difficult. When she knows shes caught red handed, she will confess, or leave.

If you can acquire her phone, or passwords, or passcodes, or actually record info, or follow her after work or at lunch and verify, it's much easier. It took me about 2 weeks, but that was in the olden days when you could put a keylogger on a home computer.

I have not tried DrFone recovery type aps, but some here have had good luck with them. If you confront, take her phone and the passcode, then run the recovery on it several times, that way you can check her truthfulness after the fact.

If she refuses, you know she's still lying.

I've seen people do this wrong and screw up any chances of conformation. Think it through, get the program downloaded and researched first, etc.

Ask her for the passwords to any and all social media.

Absolutely, many aps have messaging programs, facebook, whatsapp, word with friends and others, kik, etc. Also check any cloud backups from her phone, photo editors, etc. as these have a tendency to duplicate things she has deleted elsewhere.

[This message edited by twisted at 12:05 PM, October 3rd (Tuesday)]

All -

Your support means everything to me right now. I cannot stress that enough. More questions...

I feel like I don't have enough evidence. Yes, 700 texts [plus], and the ones I can see...they were pretty solid that something is up...but to what degree?

When I brought this up to her last time...stonewall and gaslight like a Xmas tree. Now more guarded and distant than ever.

If I can't get to her phones now...how can I find out more before pulling the BIG D?

When I brought this up to her last time...stonewall and gaslight like a Xmas tree. Now more guarded and distant than ever.

These are the actions of a person actively cheating. I'm so sorry.

You can't nice her back from this. You can't ask her nicely to stop. Honestly, she's probably texting him in the bathroom today when she's not with you. Tomorrow when she goes to work they will have secret conversations that you don't know about.

At some point you will have to ask yourself how long you want to wait while gathering evidence. And at what point will you have enough? And what's the purpose of it all?

VAR in the car, GPS in the car. Go through her purse, (the ultimate sin) search her car, her coat pockets, her closet clothes and shoes, anywhere. Think like she would as to where she might hide some mementoes or trinkets, women like to keep things.

I found a CD my fWW had made listing everything lover either one of them ever had, with details, length of time, and whether they were married when it happened! it was password protected, but I had her passwords from the keylogger, ( they tend to use the same password over and over) This "search the house" advice came from a women I had confided in. Women know how women think.

Check the Healing library for more ideas (yellow box, upper left. this page)

I feel like I don't have enough evidence. Yes, 700 texts [plus],

Dude, 700 text messages in three months to MALE coworker is an affair. Her being distant, cold, no sex, protecting her phone, gas-lighting, etc., are huge, massive red flags.

Yes, you could wait until you have more evidence of what's already going on, but that's pretty much allowing it to continue.

Step-up, brother. Stand tall.