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Mossanimal -- I think you should speak with your wife. Communication is very important. Also, you should let her know that you are uncomfortable with the level of closeness of her relationship / communications with this friend. Speak with your wife is an non-accusatory way, but let her know how you honestly feel about the situation and that you are not comfortable with the constant texting.

You should both establish boundaries relating to her communications with this friend, and, hopefully, she respects you enough to do what is necessary to relieve your discomfort regarding how close she is with this friend.

Until you speak with her, you are only guessing about the situation and driving yourself nuts. I believe we all have pretty good BS meters when it comes to our spouses -- you just need to use your's and talk with her.

Moss-

One more thing...it was either a cop or a lawyer who told me this but they rarely ask a question that they don't already have a pretty good idea what the truthful answer is.

So asking your W about stuff that you don't really know the truth about and leaving it up to her, depending on the reality of your situation, to either lie or tell you the truth is an iffy way to approach this...

^^^^^^ yep

If there is something and you don't know or have any proof you'll get nothing.

Seen this play out way too many times.

Moss. I know you are in pain. Many here have been in the same position at one time or another. It sucks.

I don’t want to dissuade you from your plan. It sounds like you have collected good advice and turned it into something actionable.

I just want to offer something you could add to it. As the last poster said, communication is key. It’s not exclusive to keeping your eyes open and finding out the truth thru electronics, VAR, GPS or a PI.

But if it were me I would say something like this to my wife:

“I love you. I am in love with you. Your relationship with Joe is making me very uncomfortable. It is hurting our marriage. You are the most important person in the world to me. Being with you the rest of our lives was a goal of mine and I had thought it was the same for you. I can tell things are escalating between you and him and it’s more than just a friendship. Our marriage can’t survive such a relationship. Maybe that’s ok with you. It’s not ok with me. It breaks my heart. I want you to know one thing, there is no one person friend or family that I wouldn’t drop from my life in a hot second if I thought it was hurting you or our Marriage. That’s the truth. I’m telling you now, we won’t survive what you are doing. And that devastates me.”

That’s it. Be clear and consice. Then go forward with your plan to identify what’s really going on.

If she asks what she can do tell her that she can’t have a relationship with him and still be in a marriage with you. If he’s more important to her than you, it will become clear. You can even ask her to read about emotional affairs. “Not Just Friends” is a good book for both of you to read.

Moss, I’ve said the same thing on lots of threads here, there is no relationship I wouldn’t give up if the other person or my feelings toward them were making my wife uncomfortable. She is the most important person in my life. The rest just add texture. If your wife can’t say the same then we all are going to need to help you navigate that.

Keep reading here. Ask questions if you need to. Take breaks when you need to also.

I wish you strength.

[This message edited by Stevesn at 4:15 PM, February 9th (Saturday)]

I suggest getting solid more detailed evidence before confronting. I know it's stressful living with the uncertainty but confronting too soon (without detailed evidence) is not effective.

They both sound comfortably married with kids and their relationship (weather EA OR PA) is most likely an extra bonus based on fantasy vs the day to day business of marriage and raising a family.

If you confront too soon she will lie because she doesn't want to be divorced, or exposed to her family and friends - or give up the OM.

Don't assume that you can scare her or guilt her into going NC without solid proof. Why? Because (even though she doesn't want a D) she's probably addicted to the attention she's getting from the OM.

Consequently, she will lie, minimize and rug sweep

(maybe even cry and insist it's a horrible misunderstanding to the point where you feel sorry for her) - but after a few weeks of NC her addiction will draw her back to him.

You need solid proof in order to obtain a confession so in turn she can fix herself - so you can feel safe going forward.

Do not ask her about recovering texts and other deleted item from her phone!

I repeat:

Do not ask her about recovering texts and other deleted item from her phone!

***

You will gain nothing whatsoever, except maybe being called "controlling" or "paranoid".

Do however, get access to her phone and run a recovery. You can recover EVERYTHING, not just texts.

Images, videos, whatsapp, etc.

If you must talk to her about it, simply ask to look through her phone, but do not mention recovery software.

She might have a deletion frenzy.

[This message edited by faithfulman at 6:00 AM, February 10th (Sunday)]

Moss, you're not thinking clearly. You're never been through the full affair process. Most here, if not all, have.

Things, concepts, assumptions you need to put aside:

First, faulty concept your pre-affair wife is the same person as your WW. This concept causes more trouble, more pain/heartache than anything else.

"My WW will tell the truth and will understand logical reasoning." Sadly no she won't, she'll answer questions based on what she THINKS you know, and will promise/ agree to anything you say if you stop this "you need to stop seeing him" line of thinking.

Analogy: her mindset is closer to an alcoholic or drug addict.

Now maybe this is still in the EA phase, it can escalate in a heartbeat. Review the term "limerence". It's easier to break the "love addiction" at the EA phase, once it turns PA, it becomes extremely difficult to break the A.

PA phase, Most likely she will become cold&distant and/or argumentative.

You have to get ahead of this, I can't stress this enough.

My belief is you came here because at some point you felt something wasn't right. Don't discuss this with her, tipping your hand will cost you dearly.

Let's say you honestly go through with your plan. You may get lucky "she sees the error in her ways" and everything returns to normal. It would be nice, but not likely.

OR, she hands you her phone, nice maybe nothing is there, because she deleted the damning stuff.

So you escalate, telling her you're going to do a phone recovery for deleted items.

Now she gets pissed, starts grabbing for the phone, starts screaming at you about not trusting her. Maybe she calls 911, the cops show up, you're arrested for DV.

If you just do a copy of the phone, you avoid this.

Btw, she may have started using a burner phone.

The big piece is the whatif is like a cancer. It can emotionally eat you alive. If she resets her phone, you'll never know what she was hiding.

Loss of trust is the biggest part of affairs, it destroys marriages. How will you feel about her destroying evidence on a phone?

There maybe nothing or maybe there's more evidence of a solid EA. Whatever you find, you'll have firmer ground on what you'll need to do.

You'll be moving forward, right now you're standing still. Most of us in the beginning are more concerned about doing the wrong thing, thereby making it worse.

If she's in the beginning of an affair, doing nothing means you're helping the affair. The more time you let pass, means that much more opportunity for it to get worse.

The book: Not Just Friends by Dr Shirley Glass is available on Amazon.

It provides a solid research based foundation for discussing her relationship with the OM - and makes it very difficult for her to justify going forward.

Best to have this book on hand before you challenge their 'friendship' (especially if you don't have solid evidence and she starts labeling you as controlling or jealous).

It's a good read for you too because it will provide you with strong arguments and terminology to characterize their 'friendship' as inappropriate and making you feel unsafe in your marriage. In fact if anyone says you're controlling or jealous, insist they read this book.

[This message edited by Robert22205https at 1:52 PM, February 10th (Sunday)]

Frankly there is only one thing you can do wrong and that is to do nothing.

Right now, you don’t know what you are dealing with. It might be a full-scale-let’s-elope-and-start-a-new-life affair, it might be all your imagination. Simple fact is this: No matter what it is it is.

It’s like if you find a lump on your body. You might worry it’s cancer and find a cancer-support forum online. Of course, we think it’s cancer. And we might be correct, but maybe it’s a cyst, or an insect bite.

But no matter what it is then it is. If it’s cancer it’s cancer. If it’s a cyst it’s a cyst. If it’s an insect bite…

Same with your marriage and your wife. If it’s an affair then ignoring it won’t make it go away. It is what it is. Might as well get to the bottom of it because if it’s an affair then it’s an affair. If it’s not… well… your worries and concerns can damage your marriage.

Plus… if it IS an emotional affair it can do what EA’s too often do: Develop into a physical affair.

One suggestion:

Well… First of all get the VAR’s in place to get the most of this suggestion.

Talk to his wife.

You say she’s a friend. Go visit. Drop by. Ask her something like:

“Hey. I’m just wondering… my wife and your husband seem to text A LOT. I gather that a lot of it is to organize (whatever it is they are doing together), but it seems that they are sharing a lot of stuff. I don’t know… Do YOU have any CONCERNS? Are you OK with it? Are you aware of the texting? Does he share what it’s about? I know this might sound foolish and I’m coming across as insecure, but honestly I worry when she’s texting him late evenings and then maybe even hides her phone from me. I would feel better if I knew you know of these texts and are OK with them.”

No mention of infidelity or affair. Just a concern. Open to this being all hunky-dory.

Now – the reason you want the VAR to be in place (in her car) is that if the OMW talks to her husband, thinking you are being paranoid, AND if there is something going on then he will contact her ASAP from the safest place he knows (probably his car).

Dear MA

So sorry you are here. I want to tell you to trust your gut. Your gut is screaming 🚩🚩 “red flag” at you.

My H had two EAs. The first was 4 years. 4 long years. From the moment I met this girl I told my H to watch his back. She clearly was interested. He laughed. This was before EAs and cell phones - in the 90s. They saw each other every night at grad school - 4x a week.

My H was never in love with her but she was in love with him. She pretended to be my friend to stay in contact with him.

Finally I realized just how far the relationship went (in her mind). Boundaries crossed. I asked my H about it. I got Denials and lies. Gaslighting. For a full year he refused to discuss. Stonewalled.

He made me out to be the jealous wife.

Because he loved the ego boost. He was addicted to the attention. He was willing to hurt me and see me in pain to get the attention from the OW.

He knew all along it was disrespectful. He just was addicted to the attention. Looking back now he is ashamed of his choice to hurt me. But st the time he didn’t care - he was selfish.

They is how strong the pull of an EA can be. I hope this helps you.

Mossanimal, please stop getting upset when you read a post you dislike.

One thing I've learned is that if some advice hits too close to home, we have a tendency to get upset with the advice giver.

Instead of getting upset with the advisor, check with yourself and see why you're upset with it.

Don't dismiss the advice. You're already dealing with something you never dreamed of.

I'm not saying there's an affair or not.

I'll also tell you as others have, do not tip your hand.

If there really is an affair, she is the enemy.

You gave a whole spiel at the beginning about what you have done wrong.

Let me tell you right now, you couldn't have prevented this.

No business you failed or lack of attention.... or even leaving the toilet seat up too much would've caused this.

This was of her own making.

Talk to the OBS as Bigger suggests. To me, he is one of the most well respected members here.

Calm down and *listen* to us.

[This message edited by Wool94 at 5:48 AM, February 13th (Wednesday)]