SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

So, I’ve been married for 27 years. My wife and I have had ups and downs like any marriage. I never expected to be in a situation like this, and quite frankly, I’m not even sure I’m close to recognizing just how far down the rabbit hole this marriage has gone.

About 18 months ago my wife made the decision to get healthy. She was 49 and wanted to drop some weight and get fit for her 50th birthday. We joined a gym and she really started taking the initiative to hit her goals. She even hired a personal trainer and started working with a dietician to make significant lifestyle changes. Over the course of the first several months, all of her work paid off. She was looking and feeling better. She was starting to gain some confidence and really making great strides.

I made my first mistake not showing her that I noticed the progress. I didn’t repeatedly tell her how good she looked, and how proud I was of her, even though I did notice and I was definitely proud of her.

I started noticing that she was starting to spend a lot of time on her phone, texting or playing games. On occasions when I’d glance at her phone to see who she was texting, she’d subtly turn it so I couldn’t see the phone. She started sleeping with the phone pretty much under her pillow. She’d get notifications all hours of the night, saying it was game updates. I’d occasionally see them pop up on the screen and sure enough, it was game notifications. But she was getting more and more secretive with the phone, and as she did I started to realize something wasn’t right.

Over the course of the next few months this continued. All the while, she’d keep up her routine at the gym immediately after work. I started monitoring her movement using the god tracker on her phone. I felt guilty because her phone was pretty much always where she was supposed to be, and I started thinking I’d been misreading the situation. Then one Day I came home from the store and she had pulled into the garage about five minutes before I got there. I walked into the garage to say hello when I heard a guys voice over her car stereo. She was talking to someone when I walked up. No biggie, until I tapped on the window. The look of panic on her face triggered alarm bells. Then she did this wave off telling me to go away.

Up to this point, I wasn’t monitoring phone bills or trying to track her activities online, or anything like that. But that incident triggered me to start looking at phone bills. I immediately found a series of calls and text messages going back 3-4 months to a specific number in California (we live in FL). I’m tech savvy enough to do some digging. I managed to find out who this guy was, what he did for a living, his address, his family situation. The volume off calls was ridiculous. Dozens of calls back and forth a day, some lasting almost 90 minutes. They’d start sometimes at 3 or 4 in the morning and end around the time she’d get home from the gym. That’s when the texting would pick up and go until all hours of the night.

I needed to confront her, but I didn’t know what I was going to expose. I had not context other than call and text logs. I’m not stupid. I had a good idea of what was going on, so I decided to ask. An opportunity presented itself when she left her phone in my truck by mistake the week before Christmas last year. When I realized she’d left it, I grabbed it to ring it to her, and a text message notification came through from this guy.

I handed her the phone and asked her who he was. I got the typical “Just a friend, why?” I don’t think she realized just how much I already knew about this guy, or the extent of their contact. So, I told her that I’d gone through the phone bills, had found a call that corresponded with the time she waved me off in the garage, and then had a chance to see just how extensive their volume of communication was.

She suddenly just went into tears saying that there was nothing going on. It was a guy she’d met through one of the games she played on her phone. He was encouraging her on her fitness journey and paying her compliments where I wasn’t when she felt she needed support.

It was a clever attempt to dismiss the whole thing as a friendship that only developed because I wasn’t telling her she was looking good. I never realized how vain she was until all of this happened.

The waterworks were non stop for a while. I was genuinely hurt because this was a person I trusted most in this world, and she was carrying on this friendship in secret. We spent the next few days talking and trying to figure this out. She finally admitted that she had started to develop feelings for the guy, and realized what she could lose, and was trying to find a way to get out of it when I confronted her.

It took a few months, but I was determined to keep our marriage and to do everything I could to reset our relationship and move forward. She seemed to be more attentive, and was working on being better with communication.

Fast forward to early May. I was working from home when my wife’s iPad started ringing like someone was pinging it. I went and grabbed it, and opened the thing up. Not sure what set the chime off, but I immediately noticed that my wife had synced her phone to the iPad. It had all of her text messages and FaceTime history. I opened the messaging tool and immediately recognized a phone number. I was relieved when I saw the last message in there lined up with the day I confronted her in December. Then I started scrolling. The content of those text messages made me physically ill.

They were sexting almost daily. What was worse for her, and horrifying for me was that there were pictures and videos each of them had done. Conversations about the FaceTime sessions they’d done early in the mornings as she was getting ready for work. Very intimate conversations about their feelings for each other, but the realization that they lived a continent apart, so it would probably never be anything more than it was. I couldn’t get the words or the images out of my head, and what’s worse is that I stumbled across all of this stuff 5 minutes before she got home from the gym. I decided to wait to confront her until I had a chance to process what I had found, and to make sure I had the complete picture. The fact that it had stopped when ii confronted her was encouraging, but it didn’t ease the pain when I saw the depth of this relationship.

I decided to look at some of the other numbers on her text log. I cross checked them to see who they were. Most were co workers while a couple were friends. But, there was another number that was from the Seattle area. I opened it up, and she had started chatting with another guy early this year. It was a brief excursion. The content started to get flirtatious, but I think she realized I was checking logs and she stopped it.

I ended up confronting her again. I was heartbroken. She hadn’t just lied, she had completely betrayed me and our vows. This wasn’t just a friendship. This was for all intents and purposes an affair. On top of that, after it ended, she started up again with someone else.

She was shocked that I had found this stuff, and begged me to delete the pictures and videos (I didn’t). She begged me for forgiveness. She finally came clean about that relationship after she realized the jig was up. Better late than never I suppose. Once again, she begged me to forgive her and used the fact that we had been working through this and making progress. When I asked about the second guy, she had no explanation. None.

I love my wife, but this revelation has really hit me hard. I knew this was probably happening when I initially discovered this back in December. But part of me was willing to bury my suspicions in order to save our marriage. That changed with the new reality. We are trying to work this out in some fashion, but as I’ve continued peeling back the layers on this , I found that she was communicating with at least one other guy via Facebook. This guy was in Canada. I asked her about this guy the other day. Another friend. Go figure.

I started going back over the call/text logs, and I found a few numbers that had a flurry of texts in March/April both guys were around her age, and both are actually here in Florida. Neither is close enough to think anything happened in person, but at this point who knows? I suppose anything is possible. All I know is that she’s been using her phone games like a personal match.com.

So, now I have a track record of almost serial efforts to talk to other men. I have documented proof that she’s having more intimate conversations than she has admitted to multiple times. I’m stuck trying to decide what my next step should be. I would love to get past this and repair the damage done, but I’m now at the point where I’ve got so much bouncing around in my head that I’m struggling to find a pathway to any kind of reconciliation. We are basically living in the same house and existing individually since I found out about the last guy. I’m at a loss for knowing what to say to her. I’m afraid to dig anymore. I know asking her if there are others is probably only going to spark more lies.

I needed to vent. I know it’s War and Peace as far as posts go, but thanks for easing if you made it this far.

First off, sorry you are here. You will get lots of advice, some you will believe some you won't think applies to your situation, it will 95% of the time. Your wife is at fault! You might not have told her daily how proud you were of her but she chose this behavior for her benefit. Just because you dont repeat wedding vows daily doesnt mean it's ok to break them. She needs counseling for her behavior, stay away from marriage counseling until she has done some soul searching and therapy if you choose to stay. You need to wake her up from the fantasy she is living in, serve her divorce papers, no sex, read the 180 and implement it for your wellbeing. Dont think that she hasnt slept with anyone yet because you dont have proof she hasnt, but the sexting is just as bad. Dont drink, try to eat and exercise, it really helps with the stress. I split a lot of wood and it was great for my anger. Tell her you want a poly and you will decide your future based only on her honest answers. Take care of you.

The guys from Florida...you reeeeeeally need to check into those guys. We've seen it here before over and over again, ad nauseum....if they can physically get to each other, 99% of the time, they will.

If it hasn't gotten physical, this is probably recoverable, if that's what you want.

Polygraph her about the Florida guys.

Fbtjax:

Sorry you are here. These are the best people you never wanted to meet because of the circumstances. Your WW seems to be obsessively seeking and texting other men despite being caught and you two trying to work through it. Is she currently still hoarding her phone and being defensive?

First you have to realize that you can’t fix her. Only she can do that if she is willing. She needs to get in to serious IC to address her brokenness and willingness to bring other men into your M. For your mental health please read and implement the 180 to help you detach from your WW so you can think clearly. Read the materials in the healing library top left of this page. See an attorney to learn your rights. If you believe she has had any personal contact with other men, get tested for std’s. If you know the OBS contact info, expose the EA to his W as soon as possible. This goes for all of the men she is communicating with. She needs to give you complete transparency with her phone, games, and soc. media. Keep posting. Others will come along with advice.

Without sounding like a sexist... have you considered your wife may be going through menopause? Not an excuse but could be a large factor in the way she feels about herself. Wanting to lose weight... along with the personal trainer and all. And now finding boytoys. Sure sounds like her hormones may have suddenly gone rampant. Maybe she should make a trip to her personal doctor.

What real consequences has she faced? Expose--to obs, family; std test, if only to humiliate and demonstrate your level of mistrust; view the videos and sex pictures together; 180, hard; request that she leave for a week.

Simply put, take a tough stand.

Lovelorn, waivering betrayeds rarely win.

Tell her to stop with the crocodile tears already. Separately, menopause is no excuse for sending pussy pictures across country.

[This message edited by MidnightRun at 4:00 PM, June 23rd (Saturday)]

Your wife is suffering from regret at getting caught.

Rugsweep at your peril.

This happens all the time. The reality is your wife is a very typical lying cheater. Nothing special except it's happening to you.

You didn't cause this but you are going to have to deal with it.

Better get strong quickly you are going to need it.

I suspect you only know the tip of the iceberg.

You can't make her do anything but you can control you and your life.

[This message edited by Marz at 6:58 AM, June 23rd (Saturday)]

Fbtjax, I am so sorry you are here. These emotional affairs that our spouses do on the internet are gut retching. Because you can read them and see your WS connecting, and probably saying (writing) that has been said to you. It is hard. The road will continue to be hard.

This site will help you vent. It will help pull your thoughts together because you will be all over the place and even flip flop on what to do and how to handle things. Start reading.

My H had over 60 online relationships, and I read through them I saw wording that was said to me in the past. It has taken me 3 months to realize when dealing with my WH.

1. The marriage is dead.

2. You cannot fix your spouse.

3. There is always hope.

4. Liars have a hard time quitting.

5. These situation especially in the beginning--there is always more.

6. There is no quick fix--it takes time.

7. Most Important. Do what is best for YOU.

It is important to find your boundaries. I struggled understanding what they were and what I should set. But recently, it is coming clear. If you have to write them out. Make a do and don't list of what is acceptable in your marriage. Remember they, our WS, made the choice. It is not a mistake, it was their choice to have conversations with somebody out side of the marriage. It crossed and broke that intimate bonding part of your marriage. Hang in there.

[This message edited by Momo24 at 10:23 AM, June 23rd (Saturday)]

All women go through menopause. Most of us have body image issues and hormone fluctuations around that time. Doctors can't do too much about that since HRT is usually risky. Most of us don't cheat. Believe me, my husband didn't notice the results of my working out either.

There's never an excuse for cheating.

She cheated. Maybe physically maybe not. Your feelings of complete betrayal are valid.

Get std testing. Insist she go the same. Don't take the chance that the affairs/hookups were remote only.

Get to IC, insist she do the same. MC isn't helpful yet. If ANY of those counselors suggest you have any ownership, drop them immediately.

One way or another you'll get through this.

Your wife is suffering from regret at getting caught.

Rugsweep at your peril.

This happens all the time. The reality is your wife is a very typical lying cheater. Nothing special except it's happening to you.

You didn't cause this but you are going to have to deal with it.

Better get strong quickly you are going to need it.

I suspect you only know the tip of the iceberg.

You can't make her do anything but you can control you and your life.

There is a lot of good advice to be found here. I wish I had heard advice like this immediately on dday AND actually followed it. Whether you want to reconcile or divorce, you must be very firm right now or it will prolong your agony and cause more damage. I'm sorry you're going through this.

This is absolutely soul crushing stuff -- if this could be translated into a physical injury, you'd be in ICU on life support right now. Your initial focus should be on taking care of yourself. Just know that the journey ahead is a roller coaster and that this will take a long time to heal from, so be patient with yourself.

One key thing to realize (as others have already mentioned) is that this is 100% on your wife and isn't a reflection on you at all. She went looking for ego kibbles all because of some hidden character gap. Not only that, she is a serial cheater -- you've found her pursuing multiple men -- and it really doesn't matter if it was "just" flirting, an emotional connection, a cyber affair or actually ended up with a physical meetup because it is ALL betrayal.

After understanding that this is all on your wife, you also need to see that whether she will become a candidate for reconciliation is all on her too. And that it goes much, much deeper than shedding tears, making promises, love bombing you, etc. She has a character gap that has led to multiple inappropriate relationships and she will need to see that she is broken and she will need to self-motivation to do the work to change. That means that she will actually agree to cut off all contact, be transparent, be honest and pursue getting help (likely a really good IC or, potentially, even a CSAT). If she doesn't do the work, the odds that there is more pain in your future is extremely high.

Finally, from a tactical perspective, just because the messages stopped when you confronted her isn't a guarantee. Many of us ended up bringing out the evidence in order to push for the full confession, but what this often ends up doing is providing the wayward with insight into how they were caught and what they need to do in the future to avoid detection. Between LinkedIn, Facebook, Kik, Snapchat, etc., there are a plethora of communication applications that don't show up on the phone bill and some of them are very good at hiding any trace of communication. And, as you already know, there are online games which can provide the same ability to communicate. Given that she has pursued multiple men, you'll want to be skeptical that she has stopped all communication and you should be wary that she might be using other avenues to either continue communication with the men you've discovered or to pursue others.

I’m struggling to find a pathway to any kind of reconciliation

You can't reconcile alone -- she needs to be all-in. If you want to offer the chance to see if reconciliation is possible, a starting point is...

1. NC (no contact). She writes a letter/email/message to any men that she has been connected with explaining that the relationship has been inappropriate, that she is committed to her marriage and that there is going to be NC going forward (forever). You get to see and approve of the message AHEAD OF TIME. Then she abides by NC. That includes additional measures if needed (e.g. blocking or ending use of apps/games).

2. Honesty. She answers any and all questions you have. As many times as you care to ask. She doesn't lie and that includes not twisting/omitting details. Reconciliation is the effort to rebuild trust, so a lack of honesty can doom any chances of reconciliation.

3. Transparency. You get access to everything -- phone, social media, etc. Nothing is locked. Nothing is deleted. There are no secret accounts. Apps aren't uninstalled/reinstalled to get around you.

4. IC (individual counseling). She needs to figure out what her character gap is and why it is there in order to make effective change. A really good IC is usually needed to help guide and challenge, but it ultimately comes down to whether your WW (wayward wife) is motivated and committed to do the work or not.

These things are not negotiable. If she tries to hold on to certain male relationships, tries to claim that you are being controlling, claims that you are invading her privacy, attempts to minimize what happened as "just talking" or "just friends", then she isn't a reconciliation candidate and is trying to manipulate you into accepting the unacceptable.

Go focus on your own healing and let your wife's actions (not her tears, promises or other words) speak clearly for what path you need to take.

[This message edited by Crushed7 at 11:42 AM, June 23rd (Saturday)]

I’m sorry you are going they this.

My two cents from my own experience. My H had an EA - face to face many years ago before the term EA was coined. It went in for ; years! It ended but was rug swept and never mentioned again.

He then had a second EA a few years ago (not the same OW) and he fell hard for her and wanted a D. Yup after 25 years of a good M he wants out to be with the OW.

My point is that I stood up to him during both EAs at every turn. I told him all I knew and challenged him. But he never thought I would leave him.

At DDay2 when I learned his A had continued while I thought we were reconciling- I finally had enough. I had my plan B in place and ready to go. Well DDay 2 was execution day.

I told him I was D him - he no longer had to make any decisions about me & OW - he was free to be with her - oh and by the way I’m staying in the house with children and he is paying for it.

Done. Calm and rational. No tears (in front of him). I had to move on and get out from the living hell I faced and 12 months of his infidelity.

And his A ended that day - and he started making amends every day. He was truly sorry. He was committed to me and the M. He has shown that commitment every day.

He keeps all women st arms length. No more flirty behavior. No hanging out with the drinking crowd like on the old days. All his decisions and choices. Complete transparency too.

I tried to reason and be supportive. I tried to understand his Mid life crisis A. Until the disrespect was intolerable.

I never cursed him or threw things at him. I never had a raging storm of anger. But when I was done - it was executed in a three sentence statement and I left the room.

He knew then he had miscalculated my love and support. It was not going to continue any longer. And we have happily reconciled for 5 years. The first two years were very tough but we hung in. And we are happy.

But he knows to no longer count on me taking any more disrespect or lying or cheating. That’s finished being part of our M.

I hope you can get there. The first few months after DDay are terrible. It is a blur to me. Cried every day. But you will survive it. It just takes time and a commitment for both parties to repair and restore the M.

[This message edited by The1stWife at 11:43 AM, June 23rd (Saturday)]

Women do get a hormonal spike just before menopause. Not an excuse to break vows.

I would tell her. NO male friends. Have all the women friends you want online.

She has too much time on her hands to be wasting it like this anyway. When she gets home, she should put that phone and tablet in a drawer and do something growth oriented with her time. Her life is slipping away while she fishes for ego treats. That needs to be replaced with doing something you can feel proud of and builds self esteem.

Hard that it has to fall on you to sort it out. In my case waiting has done nothing positive. Why the BS should have to be the one to fix a mess they didn't create is one of the most aggravating aspects of these common situations.

Let her know that everything's changed now and she isn't going to play this game any longer.

You've gotten a lot a great advice here. I'd also like to emphasize what pureheartkit said.

"I would tell her. NO male friends. Have all the women friends you want online."

Your wife can't handle male 'friends'. You need to treat her like the child she's acting like and establish rules. If she breaks the rules, you divorce her. See a lawyer now to discuss your options.

"She has too much time on her hands to be wasting it like this anyway. When she gets home, she should put that phone and tablet in a drawer and do something growth oriented with her time. Her life is slipping away while she fishes for ego treats. That needs to be replaced with doing something you can feel proud of and builds self esteem."

Many cheaters have too much time on their hands. You need to again, treat her like the child she's being, and give her tasks to complete, your make her get a job. Get her off her out of the gym and off of her lazy rear, and force her to be productive on your behalf.

"Hard that it has to fall on you to sort it out."

Cheaters are a pain in the a$$. Their selfishness consumes the energy of everyone close to them. They're a sucking black hole that has to be closed off so that everyone around them can get some relief from their asininity.

"Let her know that everything's changed now and she isn't going to play this game any longer."

You need to become the new sheriff in town. And if she doesn't like it, she can pack her crap and go. You've got to be strong and solid in your resolve. Don't allow yourself to waiver and don't allow her to get away with anything.

This is a story, almost identical to what I could have written 3 years ago. IN my case my wife had a 9 month EA with a high school classmate.

Turning 50, she started losing weight, became distant etc. Re-connected playing Dice with buddies. Lots of sexting but only a couple of phone calls and a handful of explicit picture. Only one guy and no contact since a few days after D-day.

There was some un-diagnosed depression complicating recovery. Wife is still in IC, but things are much better than they were before all this crap started.

Recovery for you is possible, but you need to know why she didn't stop when she was first caught, and she likely needs lots of IC to figure this out.

A couple of suggestions in no particular order:

1. Out every OM who is married or in a relationship.

2. Tell your family and close friends. You need a support network. Though embarrassing, it does not make you look weak.

3. No more multiplayer phone games, or any other games with chat features.

4. Have her change her phone number ASAP.

5. Get some IC for yourself to help you better process all this.

6 Find out if there is anyway that any of the EAs could have gone physical.

7. Check for other e-mail addresses she may have used.

8. Android phones allow you to see what apps were ever loaded onto a phone. Check that she wasn't using other apps. Apple phones may have similar features.

9.Ask for written timeline of who, what and when, including apps used? Use this to compare against what you find. Note there may be minor discrepancies due to memory, but not large ones.

10. If everything checks out and decide to reconcile, stop looking back. If you look hard enough you will likely find minor stuff that was forgotten or omitted. continuing to look back can make recovery difficult because it opens new wounds each time.

If you have any doubts about it going physical demand a polygraph.

It takes 2 to 5 years to recover from this and recovery time is not necessarily shortened, if you decide to divorce. Divorce gets rid of your wife but not your feelings about what happened.

Good Luck!

So sorry to hear about this. I found out 14 weeks ago my H was having a cyber affair they really do crush you. I still can’t breath at times just knowing it happened.

I think you would benefit from some individual counselling and then marriage counselling if that’s what you want.

Healing hugs

Sorry you had to find us but glad you did.

This isn't something "solved" easily, infidelity never is, and it will get worse before it gets better. Take care of yourself.

Be prepared that even now you probably don't know 'everything'. Chances are there is more, there ALWAYS is. Cheaters will hold onto their secrets as long as they can because they are afraid, it makes them look bad/worse, and to try to manipulate and control the outcome and you. Only when confronted with no chance to lie or when the perceived benefit of telling outweighs the benefit if deception will the truth come out. Even then it usually trickles out.

Beware of games with in-game chat functions. Many in your wife's shoes use those to continue the affairs or start new ones.

Nothing you did or didn't do made your wife cheat. You might own half the marital problems bu she 100% owns her cheating. Her choice, her actions, her responsibility.

You mentioned a path to r. Why? She broke the marriage not you. You can own your 50% of the problems bit you can't fix the marriage because she's the one that is the problem. She's got to fix herself, you can't 'fix' anyone but yourself. Kwim?

I think you're trying to climb Mt. Everest with your ankles shackled. She's a serial cheater to the extreme. I'm 99% sure she has met the local guys she was communicating with for full on sex. She puts very little value on your marriage. Much much less than you do. The proof of that is that even after caught and given the grace of a second chance, she went right back to it.

As much as I hate to see marriages end I'm calling this one already dead. She has changed and this is the life she wants. When you two divorce she'll date/sleep with probably 100 men. She's got a hole in her soul that needs to be filled by male attention/sex and she won't stop until it's filled or a major life-altering event occurs and wakes her up.

Maybe filing for divorce and having her served would snap her out of it. It does in some cases. I'm doubtful with her. People who have been caught multiple times and go back to cheating usually don't change.

CincyKid:

People who have been caught multiple times and go back to cheating usually don't change.

That's why I never advise R with a serial cheater. They're broken with no guarantee of repair.

After your initial confrontation, you gave her a chance; a gift, and she threw it away as if it was nothing. If she had received real consequences at first, that might have made a difference but who knows. Too late for that. Now there's only one meaningful consequence left.

I truly appreciate all of the responses to my initial post, and almost all of the advice has been terrific, and I'm working through it to figure out what my plan will be.

Just a point of clarification. I'm still not sure what kind of relationship there was with the 2 guys who live here in Florida. I only have some brief text exchanges in a flurry earlier this year, and a couple of phone calls. I've been trying to dig into this as much as I can to get as much detail as possible, so I haven't confronted her with these just yet.

I do recognize that she was given an opportunity to be scared straight, and while she ended the relationship with the guy I knew about, and the 2nd guy she started texting with after she was caught the first time only lasted 1 day before she cut off contact.

The first couple of steps in my process include getting as much information as I can using the resources at my disposal. I've never been someone who was jealous or controlling, and it's going to be a change for me to ask for her phone so that I can look through the history there. I'm sure she started really covering her tracks once she realized I was looking, so I doubt there's much I'm going to find there.

While I understand the suggestions that I need to tell friends and family what's going on, my concern is that she and our daughter are exceptionally close, and if I stir that mess up with the family, it will have an effect on my daughter. Right now I'm doing everything I can to protect her from this until we can figure out exactly what the next steps will be. There's certainly the potential that a time is coming when I will have no choice but to tell her what her mother has done, but I'm really trying to avoid this if I can for the sake of their relationship. Believe me, there's nothing I'd love more than to just out her with everyone so they understand what I'm dealing with, but I'm not sure how productive that will be if the plan ultimately is to try to work through this.

It's been a very quiet week since I discovered the last guy she was chatting with. She has given me a wide berth because she knows I'm trying to process this. I've read the exchanges, and while there was no cybersex happening there, there was a flirtatious tone to the conversations, and some picture exchanges, albeit more along the lines of PG-13 than the R or X pictures/videos she sent to Guy #1.

My biggest issue with the latest revelation is that as I dug into it, this was actually the first guy she struck up a "friendship" with online. It continued even after she ended it with her sexting pal in California in December, and only ended when I found the pictures and videos from her escapades in May. Apparently she had gotten comfortable enough with this guy to friend him on Facebook, using messenger to communicate. She blocked him and unfriended him back on the day I confronted her about the pictures. I think she realized that because I had her iPad, I had access to her FB account and messenger.

Clearly I'm all over the place right now, and I'm glad to have a forum where I can work this out with people who have been through similar situations or worse than what I'm dealing with.