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I have considered telling OBS. But WW and AP have many common friends. So word will get out. If R is the way forward, it is a bad idea. But if I end up breaking my marriage, I might tell.

But if I end up breaking my marriage

I always tell this; your marriage is already broken. It has been broken the moment she added these two people in her life. It has already been broken the moment she let another guy who's not her husband inside her body. She added further damage by having emotional (?) affair with another guy proclaiming her love for them.

It's not you who broke the marriage in any case. It was your WW.

Can we be clear on one thing? It’s already been said, but needs emphasizing:
If you do anything as stupid as changing the locks and denying her entry you most likely are getting the cops to deal with her. Only it won’t be the deal you think: The police do not even need a court order to enter a home where someone is legally a resident and asks them to enter, even if another legal residence is all huffing and puffing behind a locked door. In fact, they can remove said huffing and puffing resident for a number of reasons, ranging from hindering officers from doing their legal work to domestic abuse. You need to go even further back than 1996, maybe 1969 for this not to apply. As a cop in the late 80’s and 90’s I arrested a fair number of husbands that thought they could change the locks… Only locks they saw were the ones at the county jail for a cooling off period.

If you want her out of the house you can ask her, and if she refuses you can move out yourself. But you can’t force someone to leave their legal residence.

Gulty – Your promise to reconcile no matter what will come back and bite your @ss no matter what.
I am not suggesting you divorce. I get it from your posts that you want to reconcile. But if you "reconcile" with a feeling that you have no option and you are forced to remain in the marriage then there really isn’t any way you can ever let go of the resentment. You can’t reconcile. Marriage is always a union of free choice.

Same with her. If she thinks that no matter what you won’t leave then she has no incentive to do the really hard work of reconciliation. She can’t be true to the marriage if she’s still carrying secrets from her past.

I am not suggesting you try to reconcile with the threat of divorce, or even that you file for divorce. But it’s important for you both to realize that the recent events and confessions are a great danger for your relationship.

If you both understand the gravity of the situation you both can really focus on reconciling.
It’s sort of like if you cut your finger on the edge of a sheet of paper. It hurts and it bleeds, but you won’t bleed to death if you ignore the pain and blood for a minute or two before disinfecting and bandaging. If however you cut your pulse on a shred of glass you would focus on stanching the blood because you KNOW if you didn’t it could kill you.
It’s that intensity that reconciliation requires. You and your WW need to be very clear on that if you BOTH don’t commit 100% to R it won’t work – and the options are really clear: reconcile or divorce.

Therefore any commitment to R is linked to the mutual commitment and participation of both.

That commitment requires a plethora of things, but key amongst them is two: the TRUTH and your willingness and acceptance to hear the truth.

What this means is that IF your wife has had 2-3 other lovers, or if she met OM 4 times or whatever… she needs to tell you and you need to listen without freaking out and filing for d or whatever. Basically you need to appreciate that you are getting the truth. What that means is that sometimes SOON – like within the next 30 days at a maximum – you need to have a feeling that you know everything of value regarding the affair. Everything that is required for you to evaluate if you can R or not. You can get that info with the intent of reconciling, but it’s only when you have digested the info and the consequences that you can decide to try – or not.

Decide to try is the best you can offer and generally it suffices.

Finally – I can promise you this: Discovering they met twice for sex back then NOW will create pain. But that pain will be less than discovering a year from now that she looked up his FB page last November. By being truthful she shows you she can trust you, by keeping secrets she shows the opposite.

Your WW thinks that by lying and hiding details, she will save the M.

You have to make it clear that R is only possible once you start with the whole truth. You can’t be married to a untrustworthy spouse.

You see, there is my problem. She said they stopped talking for a while, but I know they resumed contact.

The problem is that you play cat and mouse go get the truth.

Get that written timeline. Get her to read "how to help your spouse heal from your affair".

Bigger, very helpful comments.

This morning, she came to me sobbing. "Will you give me a chance? I will do anything to prove that I am worthy of you".

I replied: "Ok, your chance starts now. Full story first".

WW: "I have already told you everything. There are no more secrets".

Me: "Will you do a polygraph?".

WW: "Yes, anything".

Me: "Only after the polygraph and our son's paternity test will we talk about the way forward".

Cut the drama.
As pointed out you posted:

You see, there is my problem. She said they stopped talking for a while, but I know they resumed contact.

When she comes to you crying and asking for another chance and you tell her yes, but only if I get the truth, and she says she’s told you the truth… THAT’S where you tell her no she hasn’t. You know they resumed contact and since she isn’t sharing that with you then you don’t have a sense or feeling that a) you know the truth and b) she’s told you everything and c) she doesn’t trust you with the truth. You then point out that without these things fixed there is no way this marriage can ever be good – irrespective of what you want.

You point that out as an issue that indicates you don’t know the truth rather than keep it as a secret to be used at a polygraph.

The problem could be that your definition of contact and her definition of contact can vary. She can truthfully think that since they haven’t met in the flesh or had sexual interaction of any form then occasional e-mails aren’t "contact".

Some have suggested you ask for a detailed timeline. I second that idea, but you too think of all and any questions you might have. Give yourself time to really evaluate what you need to know.

Once you have everything then you evaluate the need for a poly. The role of the poly is basically to validate what your wife has shared. Frankly I would be surprised if you reached that stage in the next 30 days.

Poly’s are so misunderstood on this site. They don’t tell you the truth per se but rather whether your spouse believes the truth they are sharing. If anything, they measure honesty rather than truth.
If your wife truly recalled and believed that her first car was a blue Ford, but you had it on fact it was a green Mazda she would fail the question "was your first car green" despite it being the truth. Same if your wife truly believed she met OM 3 times, but it was really 4. Poly’s confirm honesty rather than truth.

They also need to be factual – non emotional. Like "did you love OM" is a definite no-no since it’s an emotion. You want factual matters using well defined terms. Like "other than your husband and OM have you had sex [and the operator has defined what is meant by sex beforehand] with anyone else since your marriage at xx.xx.xx?

Be aware also that poly’s aren’t something you go to again and again until she passes. You both need to be clear that failing a poly indicates there is still something left to share and that your wife doesn’t trust you with that info. That in turn IMHO indicates limited reconciliation material. A poly should be a milestone in the process whereupon failure it should indicate you are fighting a lost cause, and passing should indicate you need to advance onwards in recovery.

Thanks for the info on poly.

She is not denying that there was contact. But claiming that the contact was only "like friends". The emails we have are during 2008-12. They are infrequent and the conversation is casual. Still, if there was genuine guilt after the ONS, even that shouldn't have happened.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda ... all sorts of things are done that shouldn't. We have to deal with the fallout, even when everybody involved did what they should have done. There are always unintended consequences.

I'm joining this conversation to say: Changing one's course in the light of new information or subsequent events is one of the main tools we human beings have in our toolbags.

You made a promise in good faith based, presumably, on how you thought you'd respond to any revelation. You underestimated the pain of finding out your W was unfaithful. You have every reason to withdraw your promise to R.

IMO, recovering from being betrayed works best if the BS recognizes they have a free choice between D, R, and gathering more info. IMO, you can say 'yes' to an option only if 'no' is a possible answer, too.

Also, gently, I understand that your whole life may seem like a lose-lose proposition right now. It's not. You can survive and thrive. My reco is not to choose between D & R until you see yourself living a joyful life either way. Believe me, that day will come if you let yourself heal (and get help when you can use it). So far, your posts say you're letting yourself heal.

Committing to R

When I was in the early days after d-day, I saw every issue as 'stay-go'. I mean every issue that popped into my mind - if I didn't like what my W chose to wear, I asked myself if it was the deal killer.

My W acted consistently for R for 90 days, and I committed to R. But D was still an option that I could not ignore, because it's always there. A married person can almost always D. In a real sense, staying M means choosing to stay M every moment - D is always an option, no matter what promises were made.

Give yourself a break on this - breaking your word may be best for everyone involved here.

Requirements for R

I was a consultant on d-day. I was taught to think in terms of 'this is where I am - where do I want to go? - what do I have to do to get there? - (and especially) how will I know if I've arrived?' That led me to figuring out my requirements for R.

My W and I negotiated on the details, but we agreed on what I thought were the big ones - no more lies, answers every question, No Contact, IC for her, MC (because we had a great therapist).

What do you want from your W? Answering questions is a great start. What else do you want? Will she sign up to give you what you want? If not, are her objections enough to go straight to D, or can you negotiate substitutes that truly satisfy both of you?

Have faith in yourself to heal and to make good choices. You are probably undecided now, but have faith in yourself to decide in a timely enough manner. And have faith that you can live a good life, despite experiencing this horror.

Some reading recommendations (with links that I think are still live)

https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/healing_library/reconciliation/what-every-wayward-spouse-needs-to-know.asp - if this resonates with you, I suggest printing it off and giving the printout to your H as 'something you found on the web.' My reco: DO NOT tell your H about SI until you're sure he's on board for R.

threads for newbies: http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=361740&HL=14993

Tactical Primer: https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=235051

Boundaries and Consequences 101: https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=385631

Setting Healthy Boundaries: https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=231851

Before You Say Reconcile: https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=406548

The Simplified 180: https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=598080

20/20 Hindsight: What I Wish I'd Done: http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=161389

[This message edited by SI Staff at 6:01 PM, Monday, December 13th]

I promised her that there is no threat to our marriage no matter what truths come out.

She promised not to have sex with anyone else when she married you. So, I guess that makes you at worst "even" with her on unkept promises...

Gulty – Your promise to reconcile no matter what will come back and bite your @ss no matter what.

Agreed.

"I thought I could just do it, but I overestimated my ability to forgive without appropriate recompense. I'm feeling emotional pain I didn't know was possible that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. I'd like to set the expectation that I will try my hardest to R, but that your actions following this reveal might make me change my mind about our ability to continue the M. Basically, I was speaking from ignorance, and can't necessarily maintain my promise, especially without a monumental level of effort coming from you."

What people on here want you to understand is that an EA is still an EA if done without the knowledge and agreement of the bs. So innocuous emails, texts, what-apps done in secret are a form of cheating. She has to GET it to understand why you are still waiting for answers.