Hello all,

I've been doing a lot of reading here and on other sites to try to re-create a relationship with my W of 23 yrs. We had been emotionally apart for some time, with no intimacy for two years. With IC for both of us and some meds for me we seem to be rebuilding. She has moved back into the BR after a month in another room and I am totally focused on being the husband she always dreamed of. She had emotionally left the M and in her mind was done. She still does not wear her rings but we have regained intimacy.

During the past several months, as her IC helped us put focus on our relationship I discovered a period of two weeks about 10 months ago where she had a texting relationship with someone out of state. I'm almost certain it ended after those two weeks - I'd say 99.9%. I've done some pretty deep investigation.

As things are starting to improve between us, I want to be sure not to let my knowledge of this interfere. She does not know I know anything about this person. I did find she had stowed away a handwritten transcript of some of the messages she had deleted from her phone. I had planned to confront her with the notes, but replaced them for another time. I do not want them in our home, but for now have not brought it up. The notes were more of a counseling nature, but clearly this OM was encouraging her thoughts of leaving me, and making moves toward a relationship. He was taking advantage of her vulnerability, and she needed emotional support - not just from our issues but due to significant family issues of her own.

So what to do about these notes and that I know what went on? I can forgive her, already have to myself. I had not been the best H but have resolved to make her my top priority for the rest of her life - as she should have been all along.

I do not see a problem if she has discarded the notes. Neverthe less continue to snoop.

She has not discarded the notes. They are stowed away in a box of other cards and letters received - some to her, some to us. A shared box that is rarely opened.

146, have you read His Needs Her Needs? It is essential to be open and honest in a M. You are going to have to lovingly confront her about the fact that you have read the notes and what the texts meant to your M. It is very important that both of you understand that letting another person of the opposite sex meet any of your emotional needs is a no no. That boundary must be in place for both of you.

God's Blessings,

Say

I am going to piggyback on saynomore's comments and suggest that you BOTH read His Needs Her Needs. Together.

Spend some quality time together each day reading the book, talking about its contents, and working its exercises. You might also pick up the book Love Busters and do the same.

It's important to establish the basis on which your communication will occur. If you're going to have open and honest communication, it's important for both of you to understand WHY this is necessary. And how to go about doing so.

Once you have achieved an understanding of the Basic Concepts of Marriage Building, a discussion about her text messages can be approached without fear or trepidation.

Thanks for the advice. Now I may be in trouble.

This all happened about 10 months ago, and faded as fast as it started after two weeks. I'm not certain if there was any contact since then, and was waiting for our recent improvements to continue further before bringing it up. I discovered the activity only a couple months ago. I have been monitoring the phone/history all this time with no contacts discovered... until this week.

W has made attempt to contact this person. I had deleted the contact info from her phone, and it looks like for some reason she is reaching out. Maybe she came across the number, or could have something to do with her father's care. This person is a nurse with the company that owns the home he is in, but is at a different location (where father was housed originally).

I'm hoping there is no response, but I'm afraid this will force my hand to confront her about the EA before we are ready.

So how to handle this with care, while continuing forward progress? We have made huge strides recently, so I am concerned why she is reaching out now. She was visiting the father when the first reach out text was sent, then the next day to the other phone number. Clearly she has some need to get a message to this person. I'm out of town so can't check what was sent. Hopefully it won't be deleted, but then again with the time lapse it is likely a simple starting point for something else.

Regardless of your 'other' marital problems, You nor she can make your marriage 'right' without discussing her Affair. It needs to be brought into the light of day and discussed.

Ditto what JoJo said.

If your marriage is in crisis, I'm SURE that traveling out of town without your wife is not the best thing for your marriage right now. Why are you out of town? Is this a regular occurrence?

I realize it has to be brought out, but now is not the best time!

I travel occasionally on business. She does occasionally to visit her father. I try to go when possible. I'm not too worried about being apart. I am concern right now about impacting the negative progress we have made in the past couple weeks. Is this the right time to bring it up? Am I more or less forced to now?

Please help with this question.

Thanks,

First and foremost, listen to the vets. my first gut response is to wait until you are face to face. Two weeks vs. 20 some odd years - you hold the upper hand.

there may be a time, in the very near future when you can prompt her by asking leading questions. yes, read everything on this forum. fight for your wife, she will need to know she is valuable and worth fighting for. make her feel like you can not and do not want to live without her.

you do not want to live the way you have, you want better for her and you. err, on the side of caution as far as releasing what you know. continue to snoop, see if there is any further contact. give her the chance to come to you as long as there is no further interaction between the two. if there is, well then you will have to confront.

you know her better than anyone else. if things are truly better in your relationship than work from that place, however, do not let her go without a fight. as soon as there is evidence of further contact. hit her hard with your love.

you can do this. continue to plan A her and meet all of her needs so that there is nothing the other man has to meet or do. Love her with a love that is unexpected and undeserved. i can gaurentee that is what the other man, if it has gotten that far is promising her but will never deliver. don't promise her, just deliver.

Well more than a week has gone by and the other person has not responded. I'm relieved, but still concerned she reached out especially now since things are getting better between us.

Well I have found the truth. There has been an ongoing EA using a phone the OM supplied to her back in April to keep it under wraps. I can't believe I missed this.

We discussed my suspicions as I described above and it went fairly well. My handling of it the next day caused some difficulty but we are back on the right track. The EA had ended just or so ago, which was the follow up text message that had me so worried.

So now we are working to recover. She seems willing to work on the marriage now and we are in the process of doing the emotional needs questionnaire. I've done mine and I'm hoping she gets hers done within a few days. Things have continued to get better and we have had some very good talks.

I know she is very unsure of her feelings for me - that they are not very strong at all. She says the EA did not get sexual but she admits it was very difficult to control herself. I have no way to verify what went on for certain. But I do believe her. The OM is in another city which she has visited several times with and without the rest of the family. She admitted to meeting the OM a specific number of times (very few - no need to post it here).

I46 --

She takes seperate "alone" trips to go visit her father (in the same location that OM lives??)

I46 -- I hate to tell you this but its extremely likely that it was a physical as well as emotional affair.

Here is your way to verify: Buy a SIM card reader -- and use it on the affair-phone's sim card. You will be able to recover and read all of the texts.

She's simply passifying you to make you think she's giving up the affair. What she is REALLY doing is taking the affair further underground and making it more difficult for you to spy.

Don't bother confronting her and expecting to get the truth. It just won't happen. She will lie lie lie.

Nope. Your getting the "trickle truth".

Lexxxy is right. The EA is too old and they had too many opportunities. EA + Opportunity = PA.



She is very happy for that. She only wanted to give you the most minimum you would believe.

Polygraph.

Well... she admitted to the phone, I never saw it. It has been returned and ended. I know this for sure as I had read some hand written notes. It is over. OM broke it off because she wouldn't take it further.

Could she have lied about how far it went? sure, I'll give you that. But I don't think so, and at this point I'm not sure it matters so much. I know it is over. There's no way for me to find out for certain. Could it somehow be rekindled? Sure, and another one could appear.

We seem to be working on recovering. This I take as a positive sign. What more should I do?

Do not let her go out of town without you.
Put some precautions in place so that an affair is impossible.

It seems like you're prepared to take everything at face value and try to move forward from there. Thats fine. Can you go to a marriage builders weekend? That would give you the tools to create the kind of environment where your marriage can thrive!

That would be my recommendation -- MB weekend seminar. There is one in May.

Just curious -- is she remorseful? Does she have empathy and understand the devastation?

You'll get plenty of info for R on here, but I've got to tell you one that is very important: No one goes anywhere alone overnight!

She is very remorseful and understands how hurtful this is. I also understand that I did not meet her emotional needs for a very long time - if ever, and take a lot of responsibility for this happening. I don't want her taking it all on herself.

I asked her to resume wearing her rings but she felt I was demanding that - and other things. She's not ready to do that which really bothers me. She's not emotionally returned to me, but I know she is trying.

I46-

Something about your post caught my eye.

You seem very willing to believe what your WW says. This board is full of people whose spouses lied repeatedly to them while they continued the affair. You've already found at least one instance where she told you it was done, but it really wasn't.

Waywards lie, there seem to be a ton of red flags here. I'd suggest examining your feelings, and determine if you really want to know. If you really want to know what's going on, you need to step up your monitoring. DON'T LET HER KNOW THIS.

Otherwise, I fear you're going to get another nasty surprise in the near future.