SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hey Woods:

I hope you are hanging in there good and strong.

Just a couple of follow up thoughts on your situation.

One of the other posters mentioned your wife and yourself may be experiencing a mis-alignment of values. I could not agree more. In fact, when you reach the end of this tunnel, I think that is what you are going to conclude yourself.

The red flags that you mentioned do induce a little bit of head scratching, but I have the feeling that they are probably pretty benign. The big one, like I said before, is sharing the nude pictures with a bunch of randos at a party. That would not sit well with any level-headed significant other and I think this is really the one you will need to enforce some accountability on.

As for the other red flags, you do need answers to those, so do what Bigger suggested. Take a lighter investigative approach before you pull any irreversible triggers (like a polygraph request). V.A.R.'s and any mobile telephone records research that you can scrape up are a good start. Only escalate when you are able to confirm that there may be some fire to the smoke.

And if your suspicions do end up just being a result of some lack of communication in terms of your expectations from one another, that is usually a very fixable situation.

Wishing you luck!

Woods, Any updates? Did you follow up on your plan?

Given that I kind of blew any cover I had for being able to dig into things prior to her being aware that I suspected anything, I have read through the recommendations here and am regrouping.

I have made it clear to her that I believe she has been unfaithful, have told her that I was open to talking about things, but if I ever found out that she lied then there would be zero chance of reconciliation. If I found out she did cheat, there would be zero chance any way, but maybe she doesn't realize that. I brought up that we have kids together and many major life events coming up for all of them as the progress through life, graduations, marriages, grand kids..... And that regardless of if we stayed married it would be in the best interest for the family that we had an honest and communicative relationship. Which I do mean, if she did cheat and admitted, I would look forward to participating in all of these milestones, while being actively engaging with her, even post divorce.

My short term plan is to have my attorney obtain my cell phone records for last 4 or so years and see if the text I saw was the number as I remember it or if I got things wrong. If the number matches up, she cheated. If it doesn't then maybe it was just happenstance and a few bad decisions that were over the line, but not in a marriage ending way.

Other than that, there is no odd behavior, hiding of phone or anything that would hint to current infidelity.

I just don't think I will bring up a lie detector test, at least not yet. If she cheated she wouldn't do it and if she didn't cheat she wouldn't do it.

Hey Woods:

It sounds like you are getting some things thought out which is a move in a good direction.

I just had a quick question for my own clarification.

I went back and read your original post where you mentioned the text number on your wife's phone that you thought you recognized as being one of your own work contacts.

Was there anything specifically going on between that work contact and your wife at the time that may have been out of bounds?

I am asking because it may not be a good idea to assume that she was cheating with this guy just because the numbers might match up and he happened to live close to the bar. Don't get me wrong, it seems very suspicious, but I would make sure I had a clearer smoking gun before I proceeded with any serious divorce discussion. I think you need more than just circumstantial evidence.

If your attorney is obtaining records of text messages, than that smoking gun may be contained there. I think this is the best move you could have made.

Good job on holding off on the polygraph. I still do not think that you have enough to go on to justify one at this point.

Anyways, keep posting to let us know how things shape up.

Good luck!

No reason for them to communicate. if records show communication it would be proof enough, as she denied it. I will only be able to see number, time, length of call or same info with texts. will not see actual texts.

The texts from when I saw the number and read them were basic hey how are you type stuff.

Clearly, your gut is talking to you, and we always tell people to listen to their gut, but I still think it's likely that you're making this bigger than it is. She has some behaviors that are considered out of line by many people, and that could be why your gut is talking to you, but many in this community of experienced BSs who have seen it all are telling you that it really doesn't sound like there's infidelity happening based on what you shared with us.

Tread lightly or you could end up really damaging your relationship.

[This message edited by SacredSoul33 at 9:39 PM, Monday, June 26th]

Hey Woods:

So...

...they had no reason to communicate with each other.

...your wife denies having any communication with him.

...from what you saw of the text messages, they were worded in a friendly manner as if they were indeed acquainted.

...your wife came home hours late from a bar that is in this guy's neighborhood while you were out of town.

...and the only missing piece is verification that you have the correct phone number matched up?

Ugh! That does not sound good I hate to say. I thought showing off the nude pictures at the party was your biggest concern, but it looks like this may be worse.

There was a poster on here a long time ago (I wish I could remember his handle) that caught his wife right before she planned to cheat on him at an office Christmas party. He was able to shut down the situation by going to the Christmas party with his wife, confront the other man (a temporary employee if memory serves), grab her phone, take it to a computer shop and have all of the illicit text messages between the two of them put onto a thumb drive the day after the incident. While she still tried to play the trickle truth game, this greatly diminished any wiggle room she had.

Would taking a similar course with regard to the phone be a possibility for you?

I don't mean to over state any points, but I still think you should go for some irrefutable evidence. Are you 100% certain that the information that your attorney is going to provide is absolute proof of any transgression?

I don't want to see you take on the consequences of dissolving a marriage if there is even a hint of possibility at your wife's innocence.

Again, good luck and keep posting.

One tiny but very important factor: Woods doesn't know if the number is the same as the coworker's. He caught a glimpse and thinks it's close, but he doesn't know if it matches, which is why he's getting copies of the phone bill.

Correct, I saw the number and tried to memorize it and wrote it down later. When I wrote it down it was in fact a number from a work contact of mine, who my wife would not know unless of something off. Because I dialed his number many times I could have inadvertently converted to his number when I did write it down. I feel like I would have recognized it had that been the number, but mind can play tricks.

I have a technical question. If I block a number on my phone and call it will the number show up in my monthly bill, because I am able to call numbers I have blocked, but they can not call me? Would the outgoing call register with Verizon and show up like every other call does?

Figured it out with Verizon. Yes they do register in case anyone was wondering, as long as call was answered.

Hey Woods:

Any updates from the attorney?

Were you able to corroborate the phone number?

Let us know.

Sending good vibes your way!

I was able to get last 4 years of phone record access and last 2 of text access. Number did not show up at all. I also didn’t mention anything to wife for approx 6 months after seeing it, so she would have had no reason to "ghost" it until more recently. Ideally I would have seen another year or so of the text records, but I think I am resolved enough.

Either my wife is very good at covering tracks or she crossed some lines but did not cheat. I have contemplated setting up a meeting with the guy and discussing, but I think that would be useless and damaging in my business world if I am wrong.

For me, I'd assume the phone number issue to be a trick of the mind, especially given that it was a single instance. Could have been a number similar to your work colleague's and that triggered a brain alert of sorts.

Far more concerning to me would be the bartender on Snapchat, and the sharing of personal photos with random dudes. Those would be way over the line for me, but would also be so out of character for my WW that I'd conclude there was more going on than just some boundary issues. You know your wife enough to realize if these events generally gel with her personality, or if they are WTF moments.

The Snapchat thing is prob least concerning. Seems that a bunch of people all added each other at the same time, I was able to get records and there was no data exchanged.

As far as I know the pic thing was a one time incident, a bunch of 20 something guys that were talking about how girls just send nudes like mad, my wife and the other mom she was with didn’t believe them so one of the guys scrolled his phone and showed them like ten texts with girls sending nude pics. My wife pulled up one of the pics of herself on her phone, showed them and said "mine are better". Was out of character and very concerning behavior to me, but my wife is super competitive, if someone says they can do 50 push-ups she will challenge them and do 60, pushups, wall sits, planking. I’ve seen her do them all, but showing tits was a first.

I have contemplated setting up a meeting with the guy and discussing, but I think that would be useless and damaging in my business world if I am wrong.

If your goal is to seem crazy, then by all means, contact the guy.

I’ve seen her do them all, but showing tits was a first.

Sorry if this has been clarified but, is the picture of her tits a picture you have seen or been sent before this incident?

If so then, even though it's wrong on many levels, OK.

If not, why does she have a picture of her tits on her phone and how many others have seen, or been sent, this picture?

I'd be livid if my wife did this but I'd be more worried as to why the picture was there and if it was the first time she'd shown random men her assets.

Sounds like this was a false alarm. Happy to hear it woodracer!

I think I am going to shelf this as false alarms. I do not have any proof and it could be a series of events that I partially misread although I am a, "where there is smoke there is fire" type of mindset. She knows that I would end things if I ever had proof, she may have covered her tracks very well or she may not have cheated. Not sure if I will ever know or feel 100% confident about things, but I won't break up my family based off some unproven red flags, as long as the marriage is otherwise functioning for both of us. I guess I will be doing the trust but verify thing for a while.

I'm glad to hear it was a false alarm, and God forbid you ever need us, we are here for you.