Look for it in her vehicle, and her purse.

Have you seen these?
What is an Affair?
Are "Friends" a Threat to Your Marriage?

Thanks, the friends one has a lot of parallels to my situation.

Spending 15 hours per week together would be near impossible right now, she is unwilling and would probably feel smothered. She submerses herself in the internet at home and is pretty limited in her communication time to both myself and our children.

She won't want to spend anytime at all as long as she's in an affair. Your priority is to find, expose and kill the affair.

You might want to start documenting all the time that she's internet/gaming and not taking care of your kids.

Here DOCUMENT DOCUMENT DOCUMENT

When will you be doing this?

Put a keylogger on the computer too.

I have been thinking about this all night. The problem is I believe all of her EN' are being met on the job during work hours. Spying wont and hasn't turned much up so far. There are many times when she is alone with individual (OM) in the shop for extended periods of time. This is why she is now "uncomfortable" with me visiting her there and "cant be herself" when I'm there.

Her EN's weren't being met by me, so she has always had a second life. I always wanted more emotionally from her and felt like I was living in an emotional desert. All my attempts to get her to do more with me and talk to me more were taken by her as me being controlling and jealous. Anytime we had a common goal, moving, kids, reno's etc, things were good because it brought us together.

She came from a nasty divorced family when she was 13, and I have always felt she held back from intimacy with me for fear of being hurt. I was her rock, steady, calm and patient for many years.

My EN's were not being met either, and I did for a while look outside the marriage for that, I think I was trying to have an an EA as well, but then stopped and concentrated on getting my EN's met with my children and brothers for the past few years. All my attempts to get closer to my wife have been rejected in the past 2 years, she has been critical and rejecting of even doing things which should have built love between us.

I think she has several people she confides in and shares intimacy with, and now has fallen in love with at least one of them and is trying to move that relationship forward.

Anything I suggest about us working things out gets met with automatic rejection from her and causes her great anguish.

Because I'm pretty sure of who the OM is and am friends with his friend, I am in situation of being able to try things from both sides of the EA.

I think trying to expose it cause WW, OM, and everyone else chalking it up to a jealous H. It would only re-inforce WW's opinion that I am jealous and controlling and she needs to get away from me.

Right now my plan is to work on making deposits as long as she is willing. She is much more responsive/ reciprocates and nice to me when I do that most of the time now, but then gets stalled and I worry. I am trying to move the relationship back to where her love for me returns and she is willing to try again.

My urge is to try to explain what I think is happening to WW. But I think it would not work and would drive her further away instead.

I don't know how to tackle this from the OM end. He seems like a nice and reasonable guy, with more than one iron in the fire. Anything I tell him may get back to WW. He has been going to Mexico in past years for months this time of year because of his type of work, I don't think he is doing that this year. Having him out of the picture would be my best bet to give me time to reconnect with WW.

Pole, your plan is not strategic and will not save your marriage. First off, you can make only a minimal impact on her love bank as long as she is having an affair because her love bank is closed to you. All the need meeting in the world will not compensate for an ongoing affair. Her love bank is closed to you as long as she is in an active affair.

The affair is the Titanic and the ship is sinking. It will continue to sink until you stop the affair. All the window dressing in the world will not stop that. You cannot "play nice" your way out of an affair.

Your plan should be to get the evidence of the affair and then expose it. Put a key logger on her computer, VAR in her car and do everything you can to get some hard evidence. If you won't do that, then I think you should prepare for divorce, because your marriage is doomed.

You need to get moving because the longer you dawdle, the harder it will be to save your marriage. The longer this goes on, the more entrenched the affair.

Please listen!

We are not ignorant as to how workplace affairs transpire. We realize that OM and your WW will talk while at work. That doesn't matter.

What you don't realize is that most affairees become so addicted to the OP, that they want constant contact. You may even catch your WW talking to someone ELSE about OM.

OK, thanks for all the advice. I'm pretty naive about all this, never thought she would do this to me, to say the things she has said to me, I still feel very betrayed and shocked, in denial its happening to me. This is the most painfull thing I have ever had to deal with, worse than her gang rape.

VAR in car coming. Uses tablet, I had password until recently changed. She's pretty guarded about her cell, had password last week, she may have changed it again (that would be a dicy midnight tiptoe operation). Searched for affair phone, none found.

We had a very open and good talk today about our issues and how we got to where we are. Feels like best place we have been in 4 mo's, making future plans together, but no commitments or I love you etc. She was actually much more open and constructive than any other talks in past 4 mos. But we have been close to this state before several times in past months and I have been lulled into thinking reconciliation is just around the corner, only to have her tell me she hates me, cant stand sight of me, can't let go of the anger, has no feelings for me, doesn't love me anymore, her depression is because of me etc. a few days later. I'm getting gun shy, but at least I will sleep tonight! 5 hours sleep a night for 4 mo's isn't cutting it. Its been a hell of a rollercoaster ride!

***EDIT***

I'm going out of town for a few days now, I am real curious if things will be better (miss me?) or worse (more time with OM?) when I come back. Its been the latter for past 4 months, but used to be the opposite.

She won't miss you because she will be more free to carry on her affair while you are gone. Traveling out of town ENHANCES the emotional detachment in your marriage. Why are you going out of town??

I think we have completely different goals, Pole. Your goal is to get her to be nice to you. Our goal is to save your marriage. You seem to think that the Titanic is not sinking when she is nice to you. That is a dangerous illusion that will distract you from saving your marriage.

Thanks,
Going out of town to arrange funeral services for my dad, who is probably not going to be here a year from now. I also need to do something for myself, visit friends for support. I'm emotionally drained from rejection. I know she still has a lot of feelings for me and is trying hard to deny them, this will create some uncertainty about who I am with and what I am doing. Most of our gains have been triggered by her insecurities about me going out without her or the kids.

Saving marriage is my goal, but I don't know if I can pull off snooping without her catching me doing it. I also suspect the evidence will be tenuous, I don't think I will see a lot of very intimate evidence that would indicate an obvious EA that I can expose.

Without some compelling evidence of an EA I don't think the big stick approach will work, even then she might just side with OM and try to end it with me (which has been her goal all along). She has told me several times that she needs space, wants a fresh start, too much water under the bridge, it will be easier to find someone new than fix this relationship, maybe she does not wan't me, she want's to be with someone different, she is biding her time in this relationship etc. It has only been through my shear determination and reluctance to let go that I have changed it from "you need to move out in 4 weeks" and "I'm very sorry, but I'm filing for divorce", to telling me that spending time with our son is more important than finishing the renos (before I move out), and not mentioning divorce or moving out at all.

My plan up to now was to have her reconnect enough to wan't to go back for counselling, this time with a more specialized program for our situation.

The only way I have gotten to this point is by trying to reconnect with her by stopping arguing, etc. I think she is realizing that divorcing will be more difficult than she thought.

Sad part is, I initiated this process several years ago in counselling by saying "I want a divorce". We never acted on it, and I told her several times after that that I don't want a divorce, telling her that it was a mistake to say that. She has been hatching a plan ever since, so resolving some of the underlying relationship issues is what needs to happen, and yesterday we had a good talk about our issues. She is responding with more affection right now.

As long as things are improving I feel good about our future, it worries me that she might be manipulating me though.

I hardly know where to start with this, you are so off track. How do you think you compete with another man who is flowering her with attention, while you try to "trigger insecurities" and make her wonder who you are with? Who do you think will be more attractive to a woman? I promise you it won't be you. Surely you can see your strategy is not working?


You have no idea what the evidence is until you see it. Idle speculation will not save your marriage.


This is why you need to get the evidence. Nothing can move forward until you do this.

Women want a man who will fight for them and show great care. A man who tries focuses on making her "insecure" will always look bad, especially when there is a new point of comparison who makes her feel great.

If you want to make this work, you need to get snooping and get off your butt and start COMPETING FOR YOUR WIFE.


This is all the language of someone who has found someone new. And you PALE in comparison.


That is a losing plan. Marriage counselors have an 84% FAILURE rate and have not the slightest idea how to save a marriage.


Stopping the arguments is a good first step, but it won't bring her back into the marriage. You have to do much better than that. Do you think she is atracted to another man just because he "doesn't argue" with her? You need to wake up and realize you are in a competition.


She has just been waiting around for a BETTER OPTION to come along since you broke her heart. HE HAS ARRIVED from the sounds of it.

Thanks,
What I didn't mention is that along with me stopping "love busters" I told her I don't want to force her to stay in an unhappy marriage, I want her to be happy (that was the turning point). I have been using agreement and empathy to get get her to relax, open up and start talking to me again. I am doing many things she has wanted for years and she is very grateful and happier, but also angry that it took the threat of D to get to here. Worked very well for a while, then stalled.

My focus isn't to make her insecure, but to remove some of the security she has always had being with me, so she looses the comfort of knowing that I will always be there if she needs me to fall back on. She needs to know that I can make it without her.

By doing these things I thought I was competing for my wife. How do I compete for my wive without driving her away? In her mind we should just be friends right now.

BTW I do plan to start snooping more.

"That is a losing plan. Marriage counselors have an 84% FAILURE rate and have not the slightest idea how to save a marriage."

That has been my experience too, however I was impressed by the marriagebuilders coaching center/ counselor and had planned to suggest using them.

You guys have such horrible marital habits, it is no wonder this marriage is ready to flat line. Her words are "I've got something better elsewhere" and your words and actions say "I care, but not very much". Your plan is the opinion of a person in a terrible marriage, why take your own advice? Dr. Harley has saved many marriages and he advises the opposite of most of your plan.

She needs to know that you can be a great husband. That is what you should working very hard on right now. If she is having an affair, she already has your replacement lined up and is deep in a fog.

That is a relief. They have a program that does work.

What about hiring a PI?