Allowing a threat to your marriage is what is weak. Allowing an affair to start or continue, as it may be, is weak.

Being afraid to act to protect your marriage is weak.

She may only have a crush now, but do nothing and allow it to grow into a full-blown in your face affair. Or allow it to continue to the point where you have no idea where the lies end and the truth begins.

We keep telling you that the suspicion alone is enough to warrant your request to her to end the friendship.

We all have this experience under our belt that tells us that where there is smoke, there is fire. We hope we are wrong, but our experience tells us we are not.

What is your plan?

JJ,

This has been going on since June/July, never raised my hairs until our physical relationship changed as well as her demeanor. That is when I started snooping.

I think that I am going to recind my previous statement and remain down in the spare bedroom until we are on talking terms again.

I have been working on her EN and avoiding LB since the end of July beginning of August. Her birthday was really a blast, did everythin for her so it would be a special day and as you note in my earilier post, got the wind knocked out of me when I overheard her talking to her GF about feeling "Smothered", "could not relax around me", "felt pressured for sex".

To many hurtful things have been said by her for me just to "suck it up", move back into the bedroom and act as if nothing has happened. She does that well enough for both of us.

Remarks?

JJ,

You are right! I am not weak and have no problems with confrontations. But I must ensure that I am armed with something with substinance or come out looking like a jealous, crazy BS.

You all have alerted me to some pretty important things to think and act on, and I am truly in admiration of the recommendations made based on the experience that you all have.

Thanks for your comments and suggestions, I will keep you posted.

This could have the opposite effect of what you are hoping for. My first thought was, yes, keep your distance and allow that distance to be filled in in her mind with fantasies of friend/OM. Allow these fantazies to grow in that distance.

I strongly encourage you to go back through this thread and re-read the posts from the others who said their WS's affair started with a friendship.

Ask them for advice on how they stopped that affair, and what they would do differently to have stopped it even earlier...or better yet prevented it.

No one is suggesting a confrontation, and everyone is suggesting getting proof before you act.

Setting a boundary is not confrontation. You did tell her you would not approve of her going to OM's house without you again, right? This is a boundary, and a start.

Other than that, I believe keeping your mouth quiet until proof is gotten, is the best course of action.

Thanks JJ.

I am in earnest of your comments and recommendations.

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

S-
You may be thinking about the unthinkable too much. It won't go away by thinking about it. Your wife possibly and most likely being involved in a sexual relationship with another man probably violates all your senses. The mind reaches for the nearest coping mechanism to avoid pain or taking actions you can't undo.
The result of this is you keep going.. and going.. and nothing changes with the exception of you accepting as normal conditions that you would never have accepted before. It is truly amazing how much crap a person can endure and still not die! But nothing will get better unless you take action.
Get your proof of the unthinkable.Quickly. At the same time, study plan A on this website. Get "Surviving an Affair" by Willard Harley and read it. Twice.
You are way too early for plan B, which has been discussed here.
Don't love bust. Don't leave your home. Also, don't let her take your child if she moves out. My biggest mistake bar none was letting WW get my kids out of the house and in contact with OM. Don't do it. Things just get WAY worse if you do.
Infidelity stinks and it is hard to think straight. Take a step back and think for a minute.
What will you do next?
Peace.

You are right on the money with this analogy! I am at the point where I think that my suspicions are only 40-50% possible that she is involved in EA.

I have taped, spied, keyboard logger, followed her and everything is exactly as she has said. What is the possibility that I am wrong?

If so, how can I get off this bandwagon with the spying and start to believe and trust her again?

Thanks for all your responses

SMY,



This too is possible. If it is, then you are lucky, but that doesn't mean that your work here is done. At the very least, your wife was in the late stage of moving from a friendship with his man into an EA.

That is a red flag that you need to work on your marriage. I strongly recommend that you immediately start working on your marriage via MB principles. Would your wife be willing to attend a weekend seminar? HOw about completing the EN's survey?

Her response and willingness to work on your marriage will tell you a great deal about where her head is right now.

Who

WM,

Exactly correct and I was not inferring that I am done. I have been working on MB princibles for a couple of months now.

However, BIG LB most recently that I am sure I am going to pay dearly for!

1) After our last confrontation (over the OM, spending 1 1/2 hours without his W being there), I felt that there was no hope and collected all of her credit cards and destroyed them, froze the accounts. She is unemployed and I am the sole provider.

2) Moved downstairs into the spare bedroom last wednesday.

She will probably not fill out the EN questionaire, and I fear that I have once again made things much worse.

Any damage control suggestions?

1/2 of my gut tells me that I should stick to my guns and communicate that if she is NOT willing to work on our marriage, that I am ONLY obligated to put a roof over her head, food on the table and pay the bills. Anything outside of those parameters is EXTRA.

Is this to harsh or am I being an [censored]?

2X4's are welcome, have at it, cause I know its coming!

I have tried meating all of her EN's, avoided LB and bent over backwards attempting to establish communication and trust.

Does anyone have any suggestions of recommendation to resolve this?

She takes NO responsibility in any of this.

Sympatico, three words for you: Lie Detector Test!

This will put things into perspective once and for all.

S-
Have you read up on Plan A? It's all about making positive changes to yourself to improve yourself and become a more attractive person to your spouse. It is also about busting up any existing infidelity and not being a doormat.
So... work on yourself and keep your eyes open. Don't LB or try to involve her in heavy talks about your relationship. Did you read the book yet? It explains a lot.

LL, Sunshine,

Thanks for the feedback. I am in unexplored territory and am in need of some one validating or discrediting if I am doing the right thing. The credit card thing happened today and she is quite upset about it. But we have not been on good talking terms for the last week or two.

My mindset is that I will do everything possible to make changes and work on the relationship. I am NOT in the mindset for a D or Separation. After our last heated discussion, I am currently conducting myself as if the marriage is basicly over (I am emotionally divorced), but standing by to support her and the children.

Is this the right approach? Should I stand by my guns and let my hand play itself out?

Thanks again for your time and consideration <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Honestly, can you say you're ANY closer now to knowing the truth than you were several months ago?

Why do you keep doing the same things and expect different results?

Your W gave you the open door to all of your questions AND YOU'RE NOT EVEN CONSIDERING IT!!!

Set up the damn lie detector and be done with it!!!

THEN, you'll know what she knows and you can address the problem "IF" there is one or forget about it and get yourself into some type of treatment for not being able to get past this for over 5 years.

Sym,


Absolutely not. What do you hope to accomplish by conducting yourself as though the marriage is over and that you are only still invested in providing financial support.

You really need to gain a thorough understanding of what a good plan A can accomplish in making deposits in your wifes love bank.

Please read the free information on this website carefully so that you get a better grasp of the MB principles. I would consider calling an scheduling a phone consult with Steve or Jennifer so that they can help you develop a plan to save your marriage.

IMHO, the only thing you are going to accomplish by emotionally divorcing yourself from your wife is to further insure the end of your marriage.

Who

MW,

Sorry to irritate or frustrate you. The lie detector would only give some light on the EA/PA issue. This to me is putting a bandaid on the problem without adressing the real issues.

Thanks for the suggestion though, I'll keep it in mind. In the meantime, I would really appreciate some of the expert posters here to help me with this. If it is ME and I don't have any legitimate concerns then so be it.

Thanks again

All these posters trying to help you are expert posters. They have lived this, studied this, researched this, made plans, followed through with plans, evaluated those plans, came up with new plans....

I am so frustated with you because talking to you is like talking to a cement wall. You say, "yes, I understand. yes, I agree" and then you post the same dang question all over and ask for more suggestions.

All these EXPERT posters have been saying basically the same thing.

Your sitch is not that hard to figure out.

You are not only not listening, your are not even willing to try anything.

Lets try this another way, shall we?

What is it you want us to say? Apparently we are not saying the right things. What are the right things we should say to give you the green light to ACT?

Who are the expert posters you want help from? Tell me who they are and will go get them, so they can tell you the exact same things the expert posters already posting to you have said.

Get the LIE DETECTER TEST and find out if she is lying.

That is your fist step.

You have got to have proof of an affair to know what kind of a plan to put together.

An affair IS the underlying issue, next to the drinking, and the love busters. That's it. It really is that simple.

I think everyone here has some valid points. I do have to disagree with a few things.

The lie dectecter test will only tell him if his WW is cheating or not? and if she is not it will only make the marriage even more difficult.

It seams that he has done all the EM needs, and the LBs. Yet she is unwilling to work, or even discuss there situation. If Im correct she wont fill out the EM needs questionaire, or will try a MC?

So I believe that he should do the following quote from an earlier post.

Quote:

It's all about making positive changes to yourself to improve yourself and become a more attractive person to your spouse. It is also about busting up any existing infidelity and not being a doormat.
So... work on yourself and keep your eyes open. Don't LB or try to involve her in heavy talks about your relationship.

Thanks HK.

JJ, its not that I do not believe and understand what you and the other posters are saying because I do. But isn't my reaction typical of someone in denial? Isn't my apathy part of not wanting to believe what you all are saying is true?

After all, I could also be wrong.

I respect everything that everyone is telling me, but I have got to have conclusive evidence or find a way to make her talk (assuming that EA/PA is happening).

After today (credit card incident), I would not be surprised to go home and find her and the kids gone for the weekend to her sisters house. That is how she thinks.

On the other hand she may have concelled the engagement this weekend herself.

Thanks for all the replies, I'll try not to be redundent in the future. ::)