SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

You confronted her, and she made her decision, which was to deny, get angry, deflect and lie.

Now you get to make a decision... what will it be?

Tell the Other Betrayed Spouse (OBS) about the affair? If you know who it is, you should. Many affairs die very quickly when this happens... also, he deserves to know, don't you think?

Start the process of divorce. You can always stop it later - her reaction to your preparations will tell you all you need to know. She should be willing to do ANYTHING to win you back. A little thing like you preparing to divorce her shouldn't change that.

Don't tell her exactly what you know and NEVER reveal your sources. Like Bigger said, this isn't a court of law. It seems like you gave her a chance to come clean and she didn't take it. I know what I'd do... in fact, I mentioned it above.

Stay strong, and keep the high road.

She is not going to do anything other than dig the knife deeper and increase the trauma you already feel. If you do not take control with immediate will and force, you will suffer greater pains that you already feel.

File for D. Kick her out. Get angry. She currently has no respect or concern for you or what you do. You can't wait the "fog" out. The fog, if it ever leaves, does no under great pressures that she must feel exist.

Show her you are ruthless in your determination to rid yourself of the toxic gas of the infidelity fog. Don't try to "fix" he. You will never, ever win that battle. You cannot fix her. Only she can fix her and she is no where near that place yet.

FourPlusOne,

...I know she will feel that I have broken her privacy getting it.

A suggestion for you: substitute "secrecy" for "privacy". It will help order your thinking.

I'm not sure of the best way to go about contacting the OG's other half - any advice?

1. Don't tell your W you are doing it.

2. Find the communication avenue that gives you the best chance that the OM will not intercept it.

3. The OBS (other betrayed spouse/partner will want proof

4. The OBS may/will not believe that their spouse/partner could cheat.

5. The OBS may tell you to never contact them again.

6. If the OBS confronts their spouse/partner, they will receive the same gas lighting you did.

None of the above is meant to deter you from exposing. Simply telling the OBS with providing no proof will be less effective.

Do you believe you can get more evidence?

The more you can tell about your situation the more detailed and applicable the advice will be.

Thank you all again for this initial support. I will share more as I can - if anyone feels able to help via private message then I may be able to share additional info.

I understand your hesitation to violate your wife's privacy. I too respect privacy and hesitated at breaking into my wife's email after about six months of experiencing increasing distance, detachment, and coldness on her part.

Despite the moral ambiguity, I finally broke into her email and discovered a yearlong EA with a former boyfriend from high school. The correspondence began with warm messages about rekindling their "friendship" at their upcoming 50th high school reunion. It became increasingly more intimate and romantic and culminated with mutual declarations of love this past Valentine's Day.

I calmly confronted her 7 days later with printouts of some of their correspondence, including the Valentine's Day exchange, her telling him, "you mean a lot to me," "I love being in touch with you," "my husband is out of sorts, to put it delicately," and additional messages about problems in our marriage and comparisons indicating she had more in common with him than she did with me. Telling an AP about problems in your marriage Shirley Glass writes in "Not 'Just Friends'" is "signaling your availability."

After initial and totally futile attempts at denials she had to confess.

But believe it or not, she is now starting to thank me for "waking her up" and "bringing her to her senses."

4+1

You give us little to work with.

Based on you having proof that you believe and based on being in a no-fault state (most are) then this is what I suggest:

Think long and hard: What is the worst possible outcome of the present situation?

I’m guessing you think it’s your wife leaving you for the other man. I guess you think losing your wife would be terrible. Nothing could top that on the shit-o-meter.

If that’s the case… then why rock the boat?

Most affairs don’t last more than a year or so. Let your wife have her lover. You take care to use condoms because you can’t trust her to use them with OM. Pretend to believe her when she goes – all dressed up – to “meet the girls”. In a year or so it will be over with OM and she will move on. If you are lucky she won’t have another affair and you can be all happy-happy.

If that doesn’t sound good then THINK: What is the worst possible outcome of the present situation?

I’m guessing this time you hit on the correct answer: SHARING HER is worse than losing her. Thinking everything is fine for a month or two, or even a year or so, only to discover she’s still seeing OM. Im guessing THIS is the REAL worst possible outcome.

Once you realize this it becomes so clear. You want to avoid sharing her!

So how can you do that? Short of locking her up you really can’t control her and her actions. What you CAN control is YOU. You can take actions that will get YOU out of infidelity and – experience tells us – is very likely to pull your wife out of infidelity too.

You follow this script more-or-less word for word:

“Wife. I have had an epiphany. I have realized that losing this marriage due to your infidelity isn’t the worst thing in the world. The absolute worst thing for me would be to SHARE YOU. To carry on as if everything was hunky-dory and that we had a real marriage while you are having an affair with OM [use his full name].

I refuse to share. This is not marriage as I see it and I want it.

I refuse to remain in infidelity. I am moving out of infidelity. I am simply assuming that you are choosing to remain behind in infidelity. I am initiating the steps to terminate our marriage, both emotionally and legally. It’s a lengthy process and there are all sorts of laws and regulations in place to ensure both our interests. There is no real rush, I will move on at the pace I am most comfortable with.

If you want this marriage you still have time to join me in getting out of infidelity. You need to tell me you want this marriage concisely and accept some conditions that are necessary to rebuild what we had. I think we do deserve another try, but I also KNOW that I DON’T DESERVE to be cheated on.”

if that's what you believe then we might as well give up

I'm curious how you responded to this.

@Sybo it's all a haze really but I don't think I even honored that with a reply.

@Bigger - sorry for the lack of info - still processing this gradually.

Your problem is you don't have a cogent plan.

What is your goal, and what are you doing? Because all you've done is put her on red alert. Even with your smoking gun it seems you don't even know what's going to happen because I suspect when you first revealed the info you wanted/expected a different outcome.

I suspect this is not a dealbreaker for you, so are you going to negotiate? Hit her with the evidence then bargain for her to stop seeing the AP?

Two grown adults stuck playing games of wait and see.

Your wife is fooling around. She either shapes up or ships out. Stop treating her like a petulant child who's stolen a cookie.

OK - so I'm going to get onto the 180. I already started some elements some time ago and it's been good for me. It's something I can control.

So because she is having an affair you are going to be distant?

How do you think that will go?

@Bigger not getting distant - going to put myself first and take back control over the stuff I have influence over. I cannot control what she is doing.

So have you told her that you KNOW she’s having an affair?

It sounds like you have asked her if she’s having an affair and she denied. Have you told her I KNOW YOU ARE HAVING AN AFFAIR?

What do you plan on doing next?

I fear you have a situation where you accuse her of cheating, she refuses and you both don’t talk to each other for the evening.

I have told her I know the truth but she continues to deny it. It is very difficult to talk to her now for sure.

Blow it up.

Trying to talk with her right now is like throwing a paper airplane against a brick wall. It goes nowhere and just bounces off.

FourPlusOne,

Start back at the beginning, at your original post. You confronted her. Walk us through the confrontation. What did you say to her? What did you reveal?

Do you know the name of her adultery partner?

Do you know the person?

Does the person work with her?

Did you have any signs that caused you to search for evidence?

Do you know how long the A has been going on?

Is it an emotional or physical A?

I have told her I know the truth but she continues to deny it. It is very difficult to talk to her now for sure.

You don't need to talk to her. She is lying. You know she is lying. What are you going to do about that?

4+1

You're struggling with a head and heart issue.

Your head knows she's lying and you're done.

Your heart still wants to give her a chance to come clean and try to make things right.

The problem is that she thinks you don't know what you know, so like a bad poker player, she thinks she can bluff someone who's holding a winning hand, full of evidence. Even if you can't and won't play it.

Take some time to let your head and heart sync up.

Leave the table. You don't need to leave your cards on the table. You don't need to say anything.

In fact, the less you say, the more scared she'll be.

That's where I was the night I decided my marriage was done, and my husband had only until the divorce was final to fix things. I didn't tell him the speed of the clock ticking, but I did give him just 30 minutes upon waking for him to come up with a plan or surrender his cell phone that I was paying the connection fees. If he wanted to cheat, it was no longer going to be on my dime, with resources I was paying for. That included my phone and internet connection, and my home.

It was the stone cold reality that was different. I wasn't emotional. I wasn't begging. I. Was. Done.

Get your head to engage and you'll find that same place where the mojo is to finally lay down some conditions without needing to provide evidence.

You know she's lying. So. Does. She.

[This message edited by k8la at 8:33 PM, March 19th (Monday)]

Let her continue to lie....

Find POSOM’s BW and expose with proof to her.....

When this shitbag’s world blows up, your WW will know that her continuing to deny it is pointless anymore.

Plus, it will most likely be a double whammy for your WW....as not only will her bullshit denials to you be shown for what they are, she will almost definitely be dumped by this turd and thrown under the bus as well as he tries to save his own ass.

Being all alone as her life crumbles away should be a real wake up call to your WW.