SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

If you want/need the full truth (I think you know it's at least an EA) go full force now and don't screw around.

Some suggests a soft shoe approach. I always encourage shock and awe. Nothing brings clarity faster than rattling the cages of the mind.

Currently, she's sanguine about the inappropriate relationship. Not good.

[This message edited by MidnightRun at 9:54 PM, July 20th (Friday)]

confused1976,

Some good advise from 2 different perspectives... confront now or later.

Atreides' post at 20:19 does a good job of describing the potential downside of confrontations that have little evidence (both quantity and the "quality" of evidence; "quality" having to do with the irrefutable nature of the evidence). The downside is that it can be easily brushed aside and turned back against you. This caution is not to warn you off from a confrontation at this stage. The proposed straw scripts you been given are not a confrontation in the sense of an accusatory inquisition. I sense you prefer a non-confrontational approach. Either way, the risk always remains that in your uncertain state you will not know what to believe about what your wife says. The fact is you want to trust your wife, and trust what she tells you. The other fact of infidelity is that cheaters use their spouse's/SO's trust as veil that helps hide their deceit.

A confrontation now, with the information you have, puts her on notice that you are disturbed by her actions and the risk they represent to your marriage. IMO, that is all you should expect to achieve. I believe you will remain uncertain after this confrontation.

The soft confrontation straw scripts will put her on notice of your suspicions and concerns for your marriage. The intent would be to give her pause to carrying her relationship with the other man any further.

My point is that you will not know if that indeed happens or if she uses her high intelligence to drive her contact and communication with the OM to a communication platform that can't be traced.

One simple intelligence gathering step you can take now is to check her current (and old phone) for all the apps that are loaded. WhatsApp is a favorite cheater app. Some cheater apps are hidden as calculators.

The confrontation scenarios are an intervention limited by the information you currently have found. Temper your expectations as to outcome.

your wife's life is your life and if she is having an inappropriate relationship with another man, or a full blown affair, F her privacy.

If you were caught doing what she is doing, what would she do to you ?

You are thinking this backwards. You are scared of overreaching. Your wife overreached. Not you.

Get the ball rolling on this and report back to us

nothing about her mannerisms or actions suggested that anything

It is amazing how easily a WS can lie. I was shocked at how well my WH lied, I had known him 40 years and he looked me straight in the eye, lied, and I believed him.

She has betrayed you so don't feel bad about digging. Married women don't send texts like you uncovered to casual friends.

If you do confront it is easy enough to say "I know you are having an inappropriate relationship with M". If she asked how you know do not disclose.

Well I took Biggie's suggestion and confronted my wife with my concerns. The reason was simple- both for the rationale that Biggie provided and for more practical reasons: I want some sort of immediate closure, whether real or not, - work has gotten complicated and second, the software is more complicated and I need to learn how to use it properly without generating more problems, also and I have lost any Window of opportunity for independent access to her phone. I am not reading into this....this was always the case. I even commented about it and she said something like it's not as bad as the kids...

I asked her about M*** and the texts and my feelings regarding the inappropriateness of his type of relationship. She took it almost as a joke and laughed until she saw how serious I was. She explained that she and he were friends, always that way, never romantic even in college. The bar visit last year was the only time they had met face to face and it was simply a reunion in which they talked about old times, etc. etc., nothing more she assured me. I asked about the other FB messages and she told me that I read them out of context and showed me the conversation..it was short and she told me it had to do with her just being a good friends, nothing more. I then asked her to stop and she said, that there really wasn't that much contact anyway....and showed me her FB chat with him...there was only one other congratulating her for a promotion and it was short. Yes I realize that these could be processed conversations, but she agreed to stop or at least confirm with me when she is communicating with M*** and keeping me in the loop. Again, I have always trusted my wife and don't manage or monitor anything she does so she didn't think that I would have minded, but saw the potential misinterpretation of such a circumstance. We then talked about our personal life and she explained/ reminded me that she might be have symptoms of early menopause and a thyroid condition...I apologize for this detail, if it bothers anyone, and that she enjoyed and loved me dearly. We are planning to seek some additional help as well.

Now, I know this could be a complete ruse -- but what am I to do. I have no credible evidence of any misdeed except for a series of regular texts that outline an invitation to a concert that she never went to and later a potential meeting that included me but never happened, a definite talk at a bar over a beer, and a FB message that when I read again had m**** apologizing for his potentially inappropriety for saying that he loved her. In the n do fe months I se no red flags as far as a potential facets face reunion. Her trip next week involves sharing a room with a female colleague and several of her grad students and the tentative return trip to her home seems much more remote-- she says that she doesn't want to go and her father may be making other arrangements. I might I will still look for evidence if I have time- I bought the recovery software and at worse I can get picture off old phones, but unless I find something damning - nudes selfies or far more explicit texts - I will need to believe her and move on with this as something that I completely misinterpreted. I am a little embarrassed and I apologize for your time to everyone who helped me with this. Thank you all again.

confused1976:

Great update. Glad you took bigger’s advice and confronted her now.

No apologies necessary. Everyone here has been there. You have no reason not to believe your W’s explanation.

What to do now?

Of course, always be vigilant without being paranoid unless your W gives you a reason.

But most important:

Enjoy your beautiful W and your M!

Good luck!😎

I'm glad you confronted. In my opinion, that's the best way to get an idea of what's going on. We're married to our spouses. We should have an idea if they're lying to us.

But we have a saying here, "trust your gut."

Have you had a history of being jealous? Have you been suspicious of her before? Has something changed in you that would cause you to become a little insecure? Has anything happened recently, not relating to her, that would cause you to become a more suspicious person?

If the answers to these questions is no, then I would be very careful. Your subconscious is trying to tell you something. It's saying "somethings not right. something doesn't add up." You need to pay close attention. I would put a VAR in her car. She may try to contact him and say that you are becoming suspicious. You have to remember friend, that most of us husband's loved and trusted our wives. We were very surprised to discover their faithlessness. So be careful.

If on the other hand, you've always been either suspicious, insecure, or jealous, then you may not have anything to worry about.

good luck friend.

Mike7, thanks for the advise. Actually I am not a jealous person and I am pretty secure - things couldn't be better,. Which was way last wed which started off pretty awesome, went s little sideways when I read the texts. I'll follow my gut when it tells me something is a little off. Thanks again,

You should of hid a VAR in wife's purse and her

car before confronting. Because if this was an

affair you would of caught WW warning the OM that

you suspect them.

All you did was to warn WW and the OM to be careful

to not get caught.

I think that you did great. As Bigger said, this was likely a dude casting a wide net, which includes your wife. Your wife was a bit naive and perhaps had some boundary issues.

The purpose of you confronting was to nip this in the bud and to communicate where you stood on this. To that point you did a great job.

It's not like you can now be like "I 100% trust her unconditionally" now but you can probably proceed forward. I'd recommend some MC to make sure communication is on point.

I then asked her to stop and she said, that there really wasn't that much contact anyway...

but she agreed to stop or at least confirm with me when she is communicating with M*** and keeping me in the loop.

so she didn't think that I would have minded, but saw the potential misinterpretation of such a circumstance.

confused1976, she continued to have contact with him after he professes love, invites her to a concert. And says she will continue to have contact with a man that says he loves her. Or says she will stop having contact. Or will keep you in the loop if she does have contact.

And you are reassured by this blurry boundary? She has poor boundaries. She thought you wouldn't mind because you trust her. No, that reasoning is flawed. She should have minded when a man told her he loved her.

You asked her to stop the contact. She will, or won't, or might. He is her friend. A friend who says he loves her. And she is ok with that. And you're ok with that.

You did great. However, the other man is fishing.

He’s to close for comfort and needs to be cut off.

Your wife should be willing to do that.

He is an enemy of your marriage.

^^^ THIS ^^^

I am glad things worked out well for you.

Your wife may perceive the OM as an old friend... perhaps more. You may have caught this at x stage. But something is wrong for him to profess his love for your wife.

I have never told someone that is a friend I "loved" them. I would never utter those words to a married woman. He is not a friend. He is after your wife. He would seduce her IMHO if given the opportunity. He needs to go.

Your wife may be excited about having another man love her...validation and power. But, she does not understand many of us (men) and the games we play. She needs boundaries.

I suggest she read "Not just friends." Maybe she will understand how things can get out of hand when first they are innocent.

Also, I think she needs to involve you more in her friendships with men from an in real life standpoint and copy you on text and messages that are not business related. She needs to understand the heartache and doubting her actions caused you. She needs to understand that even though she felt they were innocuous from her standpoint, it was not good for the marriage. There really is no reason for them. Prior to or when he first uttered the "I love you" she should have shut it down. She should have informed you and in her response stated something like "OM your feelings are misguided. While I have been your friend, the love of my husband is where my heart is at." She needs to learn how to protect her marriage. A concept of radical honesty would be of great benefit IMHO. It would at least give you peace of mind and her a better more confident spouse with a better marriage the end result.

Dude....come on. If all this is true, how do they have a "usual" meet up time?

GoldenR brought up an excellent point. Whatever was/is going on, your wife does not need to be having usual meet up times with other men. Do not minimize this friendship or whatever it is.

Let me get this straight.

1. She met him alone at a bar and didn’t tell you.

2. He professed his love for her and she didn’t tell you.

3. They chat on Facebook and she doesn’t tell you.

4 This doozy. “in one set of messages there was even the original arrangement to meet at the bar -- with my wife saying something like' how about 4, the usually time'. Which is weird because, we live 12 hours away- what is usual.”

Im sorry, this does not add up. If I was a betting man, I’d say there is more to come.

It was an EA. It may have been mainly one sided but she evidently liked the validation/feelings. That’s why you were never informed.

Bigger is correct you both need to sit down and read “Not Just Friends”.

IMO you caught this just in time.

[This message edited by Marz at 1:16 PM, July 21st (Saturday)]

1. She met him alone at a bar and didn’t tell you.

2. He professed his love for her and she didn’t tell you.

3. They chat on Facebook and she doesn’t tell you.

4 This doozy. “in one set of messages there was even the original arrangement to meet at the bar -- with my wife saying something like' how about 4, the usually time'. Which is weird because, we live 12 hours away- what is usual.”

Im sorry, this does not add up. If I was a betting man, I’d say there is more to come.

If all this is true, how do they have a "usual" meet up time?

Yes to all of the above. ^^^^^^^^^^

Listen, you did what most BS's do, because we just cannot believe that anything could be going on, especially if you are like many of us that we really just did not suspect anything at all... until we saw a text, or an email or whatever and it made us start digging. And then are totally freaked out when we find much more.

She now knows you found something, my bet is that she is going to go further under ground. Take your time, figure out how you would like to "trust but verify". Many of us did not follow our gut when we knew something was not right, because we TRUSTED our WS.

We know you don't want to be here, I know this is not what you want to hear. It is your marriage, you do what you feel is best. Our best advice on here however is to trust your gut. Also don't let her know anything else, let her feel like it was just a "oops" kind of thing and then I would lay low. And check into other things.

If you end up being wrong? Then no harm no foul. But she does at the minimum have a very inappropriate friendship going on with meeting times and someone on the other end who has expressed their love to your wife. And she has not told you. Not good.