SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Thank you all for providing this forum to share what we are going through. I was on the site to read and learn but I think posting will help me get out the pent up emotional turmoil that I'm going through. Three nights ago my wife went out to dinner with a girlfriend and they ended up going to a bar afterwards and another after that. She didn't get home until around 5:00am and I asked her why she was home so late. She responded by saying she was home much earlier but fell asleep on the couch with our pet. I didn't buy the story so I thought to check our toll road charges on their website and the information pointed to her driving somewhere late night and then back after a a couple of hours. I confronted her with this information and after a number of lies, she admitted what had happened. She met a guy at the bar, he was charming, fed into her insecurities of just turning 42. After spending a good amount of time at the bar, he propositioned her to come home with him and she accepted. This was a complete blindside and very, very, unexpected. I am so devastated over this, angry, and confused as to why she would risk tearing apart our family for a one night encounter. I'm also really concerned about how easy it was for her tell lie after lie trying to protect herself from being found out. If I didn't have the evidence, I would never have known about this. It seemed too easy for her to do this and I'm concerned that this may not have been the first time, but I don't have any proof. Only the concern and ultra-sensitive suspicions. I don't know what's real and what isn't at this point and its killing me. I don't really know how to proceed right now. She is staying at her parents. I'm home with our two daughters not knowing if I should take a stand that this is a deal breaker or if I should try to work it out with her. Definitely too soon to know because I'm going through such strong, fierce emotions filled with anger, confusion and disbelief. Please comment if you have any direction or suggestions that you would like to provide. Thank you.

Check her cell phone records. Demand access to her email. Are there any other nights you are questioning in light of this new information? You need to figure out if this is truly a 1 time event or a pattern. If she was truly ready to deny until presented with evidence, i hate to tell you but more likely than not its not a one time thing.

Thank you @Someoneelse2112. She de-activated all of her social media accounts (FB, Instagram) but provided me user names and passwords when asked. Instagram was completely deleted however so I am very suspicious of that. I've checked cell phone records but haven't found anything suspicious but with IM, there won't be any record of that.

She has been a complete mess since I've confronted her and seems to be spiraling into a dark place. She is full of regret and has expressed how sorry she is and that she doesn't want to lose me. She vehemently denies that this has ever happened before but I know she has zero incentive to tell me the truth about that so I just don't know. There hasn't been anything specific to make me question other encounters but there has been flirting through IM's with another man a couple of years ago that she disclosed to me yesterday.

I am so heartbroken about this and am not thinking clearly about anything. I've been able to stay calm on the outside and put a good face on for my two daughters but this is tearing me apart.

The fact that she deleted all social media immediately in the wake of this discovery is certainly concerning. Why would she delete it if she felt there was nothing there that would reveal other incidents of lying or cheating?

[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 10:39 PM, July 6th (Saturday)]

Tell her for you to even consider reconciliation, she needs to take a polygraph and pass!

Thank you for your comments @butforthegrace and Toby.

Agreed regarding the social media issue. She said that she did it because she thought that I would want her to but that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. She reactivated the FB account but Instagram was lost so I am concerned with that.

I would love for her to take a polygraph and never considered that.

If I’m not mistaken, you can’t deactivate Instagram like you can with FB. The only way to permanently log off is to delete it.

I’m sorry you’re here.

Strength! You already know that she has cheated on you with another man, that she tells you lies and is a liar, and that she destroyed evidence. Welcome to hell. At the same time, at least you now know this, and that also makes things somewhat more clear.

Yes, your world is upside down now, and all of this will affect your health and ability to think clearly and to work. You will no longer know what is true and what is not, and will start to doubt yourself and your romantic past with her. You also may be very angry at her, the other guy, and yourself. Also, she is in self-preservation mode now.

At all times, remember that you are not crazy, that this is not your fault, that you have to take care of yourself and be your own best friend from now on, that there is no "full truth" because you can never verify what you have not witnessed yourself, and that you need to stay CALM at all times (or things might end very badly for you).

Knowledge is power, read as much of the other posts of others here in this forum and the advice given to them, it will educate you about this thing 'infidelity' and how to take action. Infidelity has its specific patterns and characteristics.

You now know a portion of it all and there might be much more, in this confusing time you should figure out whether you can live with what you now know what she has done, as a first step.

The members of this website are here for you, you are not alone. Strength!

One thing you must do in my opinion is put divorce on the table. No matter how big of a fit you had if you go straight to reconciliation (R) your actions demonstrate that you don’t think it’s a big deal.

It’s like committing a crime, getting caught by the police and jail time never being mentioned. If there is no possibility of jail then it must not have been a very serious crime.

Contact a lawyer and let her know that you are. You need to do that anyway to find out your options.

After being married for years your value is companionship and security. Being a dependable nice guy that loves his wife can work against you. Because you’re such a good husband and dad she knows that after you have a fit it will blow over and things will go back to normal. All she has to do is say the things you want to hear.

It’s like working with a net. You need to make her realize that there was barely a net this time and there will be no net next time.

If she can count on never losing the benefits you provide then why wouldn’t she have an occasional “charming” guy?

Keep her at her parents for a bit to make it real. Don't have sex with her and have her get tested for STI's.

[This message edited by Michigan at 12:32 AM, July 7th (Sunday)]

Have her prepare a detailed timeline of her evening subject to a polygraph.

Does she often go out alone without you?

Does she guard her phone or exchange texts secretly?

Will she identify the OM or where he lives?

She regrets getting caught ...that's not remorse nor does it make her a safe partner.

Get tested for STDs.

Ask your doctor for help sleeping and anger/depression.

Inform her that you need 90 days to decide whether to D or R and extend the time as necessary.

Get Fonelab and run a data recovery on her current phone and any older phones.

The information will be there.

Put a Voice Activated Recorder in her car and in any room she likes to talk privately in.

The best bang for your buck is the ICD-PX470 - around $50 on Amazon.

Read the manual, you can suppress all beeps easily.

Also get an SD card so you have a ton of recording time: The SanDisk Ultra 32GB microSDHC UHS-I card with Adapter - 98MB/s U1 A1 - SDSQUAR-032G-GN6MA is 32GB and runs $8 on Amazon.

You can buy 100 Amazon-branded AAA batteries for less than $20 last I checked. More than enough juice to keep you going for a long time.

***

Put a keylogger on her computer. I've used "Best free keylogger". Don't be surprised when you find out more...

[This message edited by faithfulman at 1:05 AM, July 7th (Sunday)]

she doesn't want to lose me.

F*** some rando and doesn't want to lose you. That's quite an ask. I guess she forgot people get divorced for shit like this.

She's all messed up now - get her some counselling help and let her figure it out. It's not on you to ease her pain. She owns it, let her deal with it.

Get a hug from your kids, you deserve it for being the adult in your marriage.

Deleted Instagram. Bad sign. Are you sure she just met this guy for the first time? She had not contacted him before? Perhaps via Instagram?

IMO she is in Cover your Ass mode.

She is full of regret and has expressed how sorry she is and that she doesn't want to lose me.

Yea yea. They all say that...after they are busted.

Before getting caught they lie as easily as breathing, and sleep like a baby.

After being caught....I’m so sorry, it was a mistake, I never meant to hurt you, I will do anything to keep you, I chose you, I was never going to leave you, it was only this one time/person. Etc etc

Take your time. Read up on the 180. Get physical and emotional distance from her. It’s about YOU now. You are the prize.

Do not have sex with her until there is an STD test. Also sometimes WW’s use sex to cloud your thinking.

You need space to figure out if her having sex with another man is a dealbreaker for you. Can you stay and look yourself in the mirror?

If R is acceptable to you, then access if she, via her actions (not words), is a decent candidate for R.

Some of the basics:

- it’s not your fault.

- it’s not the fault of your marital state.

- it’s not a “mistake”

- it’s not because she was drunk

- she chose to do this

Take some time to recover. Seek support from friends and family.

Do you know her girlfriend? She could be an enabler of this behavior, and in that case, she would have to go if you eventually want to R.

Getting out of infidelity can be done through either R or D. I agree with the others, the fact that she deleted her accounts is very concerning; why do that if she had a ONS? I’ve been on this site for a while and it’s rare that you hear about a WW having a ONS just like that. There must be more to the story.

From the way you wrote your post, you are an empathic person, am I right? Don’t let her despair get to you. She chose to hurt you and your daughters for ego kibbles. If you ever give her the gift of R, she will have to work for years to re-establish trust and fix her mess.

Stay firm, tell her she has exactly one chance to tell the whole truth about all of her affairs (if there’s more than one) and you’ll make her take a polygraph to confirm after.

Of course, you can choose to D her, in which case, none of this matters anymore.

Stay strong, post often, the people here have a wealth of experience and can help.

And tell your WW she needs to get STD tested too.

I would absolutely require a written timeline backed up by a polygraph to confirm and tell her one question will be whether there was other cheating in the past.

Demand to know who the AP is and if he is married tell his wife asap and without telling your WW you plan to do so.

I agree on the VAR as another way to get the facts.

Blindsided19,

Sorry you're here, bro. You're at the beginning of a very long, shitty ride - whether you R or D.

First, you need to be sure that this is just a one-time event or a pattern. If it's true that she had inappropriate IM's with someone a couple years ago and now a ONS you can see that she's escalating in her pattern. Just know that whatever story you're getting from her, it's the most watered down version and only the tip of the iceberg. Cheaters lie and then they lie some more. And they will only admit to what you can prove. Think long and hard. Is this something that you want in your marriage for the rest of your life?

Successful R only happens with the WS is willing do do the bulk of the work. Does your WW act like she's willing to do that? Or did she seem checked out of the M before your discovery of her A.

I'll tell you from experience that once a WW checks out of a marriage, it's very hard to get her to come back. Even if she "doesn't want to lose you". What she's really saying is that she doesn't want to lose the security that you provide - a nice house, someone to help care for the kids, comfy bank account.

Make no mistake, you are not her Plan A. At least not at the moment. She's looking for anyone that can blow unicorns and rainbows up her ass while you're at home maintaining the status quo. DON'T SETTLE FOR THAT.

You've gotten good advice thus far regarding the bare minimum of requirements for her. Don't offer R right now. Now is the time to watch how she handles herself. Any secrecy and push-back are bad signs.

Strength, dude.

[This message edited by squid at 6:30 AM, July 7th, 2019 (Sunday)]

What role did the girlfriend play? They went for dinner, went to a bar, went to another bar. Did they travel together? Were they trolling? Were they each others wingman? What did the girlfriend do when WW went to guys place? Was she in WW's car while going through tolls?

Sounds like it was a plan for the evening. Sounds like there is much more to this than has been admitted to.

It was that easy to get talked into going to a "strange" guys place? Really?

De-activating all social media is very suspicious. She wasn't thinking that you would want her to. She didn't ask. She was thinking only of herself and protecting herself.

She's a mess. She's a mess because she got caught. She was never to be found out. She full of regret. She regrets getting caught.

Trust your gut.

What is the story of the girlfriend? Is the girlfriend married or have an SO? What time did she get home? What story did she tell her husband/SO, if any? Talk to her husband/SO, if she has one, and see what he knows or inform him about the events of the evening if she "got in late".

Same suggestions as you've been given.

See a lawyer to find out your rights and if an at fault D is possible. Prepare the D documents. Be prepared to file and have her served. Filing and serving only starts a longer process than can be halted.

She must get tested for STDs and provide you with the written lab tests. If you've had sex with her since the occurrence get tested yourself. Since this seemed to happen quite easily it seems to me it may not be the first time get tested yourself anyway.

I had my WW do a polygraph. She found it humiliating. Too bad. You only get 3 or 4 questions. I agree with the poster who recommended one. One question would be to find out if there were any other occurrences during your marriage. I would also wonder if her were actually a random meet-up.

I do suggest, as I said above, to find out about the events from the girlfriend and her partner, if she has one. Don't tell your WW you are going to do it ahead of time.

Sorry you are here, Blindsided. You've acted quickly and that is good. If you're in a fault state and decide it's a dealbreaker you're ahead of the game. Since I didn't kick my WW out or leave myself immediately on finding out I'm viewed by law as having condoned the adultery (ain't that a kick in the nuts) and the at fault option isn't open for me.

You have received a lot of great advice. The one thing I will add is that, unlike a few other opinions here, I think this could be just what the data is telling you it is so far.... a drunken one night stand.

That doesn't mean there isn't more beneath the surface and you shouldn't dig to know all that you can. Deleting accounts does sound suspicious. But there isn't any immediate proof it was something more.

Do your due diligence as others are recommending. But don't go down the worst case scenario in your head just yet either. Maybe it will be the ONS and while that is still horrible, it is usually a bit easier to grapple with if you have an inclination toward reconciliation. Particularly as she seems to be showing some early signs of remorse.

Just a short point since I’m tight on time:

Reconciliation is possible, but it should never be the foregone conclusion that you have to reconcile.

In order to fully reconcile (and if you goal isn’t to fully reconcile then R isn’t worth it IMHO) you need to fully understand what you are reconciling from. In other words: the total unembellished truth.

You need to let your wife know this: If she doesn’t want to lose you SHE needs to act. That action includes stuff already mentioned like a full STD screening. But it also includes letting you know who OM is with name, address and all. Who was with her at the bar. Who was witness of the build-up. Who encouraged her on…

This truth is not so you can plot revenge or shame her. It’s to ensure that YOU know what you are dealing with and YOU can build your decision on the future based on TRUTH.

Make it clear to her that once she has told you what you need to know you are getting her honesty confirmed with a poly.

THAT is the goal of the poly – to confirm her honesty.

Make it clear that if she fails the poly it’s a strong indicator for you that she doesn’t trust you and can’t be honest, and without that honesty you are better off accepting that the marriage is dead.

Hi Blindsided19,

I am sorry that you are here, but I am glad that you found this forum, because it can be a great resource for you. The members here have actually gone through these situations themselves, and can offer the benefit of their experiences and what worked (or didn’t), which can serve as a guide for you.

You have had a lot of good advice so far from a number of veteran members of the forum.

Given the contradiction between this…

She vehemently denies that this has ever happened before

…and this…

…there has been flirting through IM's with another man a couple of years ago that she disclosed to me yesterday.

…and how questionable it is that is that she went out not looking to cheat, but then happily drove several miles to the home of a complete stranger she had only just met for sex, my question would be whether she already knew this guy via online flirting, and she went to the restaurant to meet him, possibly without her girlfriend being there at all.

Forum member steadychevy has already posed several good questions that can help to clarify the whereabouts of the girlfriend on the night in question. You may find that she was home watching TV with her husband.

As steadychevy suggests, it is definitely worth contacting this friend’s husband or significant other about that night, letting him know what the girls were doing that night, and asking what time his wife got home.

Re. the restaurant, who paid the bill? Is it on your wife’s credit card bill, or the friend’s? It may turn out that neither of the women paid the bill, which suggests that a third party picked up the tab.

It is possible to try using software like Fonelab to try and retrieve deleted material from your wife’s phone and digital devices, but an alternative option would be to get a private investigator to do the recovery for you. Most PIs do that kind of work all the time, and they have good knowledge of what to look for, and where things may be hidden.

It would also be possible for the PI to put location tracking and keylogging software on the phone and other devices, if you want to gain additional insight. There is software that will actually record and save all calls made, as well as copying and saving all messages. A PI can fill you in on the various options available.

I agree with the suggestion that your wife provides a detailed timeline of the evening and the length of her contact with the random stranger, so that you can verify as many details as possible.

For example, if she says she never had any contact with him prior to that evening, and the PI finds deleted messages, you will know that this encounter was not something that just happened on the spur of the moment.

It is also worth checking if she messaged him afterwards.

This is obvious, but there must be no more ‘girls’ nights out’ with this ‘friend’. If she actually was present on the night in question, she is clearly not a good or safe influence. Do they have a history of these nights out together?

Forum member Bigger has made excellent points about the need for complete truth, which is unfortunately something that can be very hard to get when busted wayward spouses want to provide minimised, air-brushed accounts of their actions.

Forum member Sisoon summed it up very well in something he said to his wife; If you tell me everything now, I may leave you. If you don’t tell me everything now, and I find out something in future, I will leave you.

It would be worth saying the same thing to your wife, so that she understand that lies are not a protective shield, but something that will come back to bite her in the behind and destroy the marriage completely. Tell her that and allow some time for it to sink in.

I know this must seem like a complete catastrophe, but you are doing better than you think. The suggestions that are made here can become tools you can use to regain some stability and control of your situation.

Please know that there is no one-size-fits-all quick fix to these situations. Getting out of infidelity is a journey that consists of several stages.

Those stages will be different for every person, but they need to take place in sequence for the journey to be successful, whatever the final destination is.

At this point, you are at the first stage; discovery, and the need for truth.

Once you feel like you have enough of the truth to satisfy you, you can make an informed decision about which direction you wish to head in (reconciliation or divorce).

Please understand that you can take whatever time you need to let your emotions settle, and that giving yourself that time is vital for you to be able to make a truly considered decision based on more than just a strong emotion.

This is serious stuff, and there is no rush.

Your wife is going to have to explore why she got into online flirting and why she cheated physically. If she has insecurity issues, a need for validation, lousy boundaries, etc, they need to be identified so they can be fixed. That is going to be her journey.

She needs to fix herself even if you end up divorcing her, or she will spend the rest of her life mistakenly thinking that other people are the fix for something that is missing within herself.