Hello,
Three weeks ago I discovered my wife of three years had been having an affair for over a year. It began a few months after our first child was born. She swore it was over and that they had already broken it off. Two weeks later (one week ago) I discovered that in fact it was still ongoing. I also found much more information regarding the depth of the affair. They were deeply in love, were regularly intimate and went through great pains to see each other every day. She expressed to him that she wanted to leave me for him.

I confronted her again, and this time I demanded she choose between him or her family. She chose us, and swore again she has ended her affair. That was one week ago. We both admitted we had a role in what happened, apologized and agreed not to discuss any details of the affair. I made her promise to completely cut off all contact with her lover, and delete or discard any tokens of affection, videos, and digital images and she says she has.

Since then, there have been many changes in her mannerisms, attitude, and shows of affection towards me. She doesn't hide her phone anymore, and tells me wherever she's going. She hasn't worked since September, but has already gotten a new job and starts Monday. These all have made me feel very good about our progress and I am starting to regain trust in her.

Yesterday I asked if she would look at this site with me. I asked her read DR. Harley's background, and start reading the sections on Coping with Infidelity. That did not go well. She stopped after the 2nd letter and became very upset. The same letters that helped me greatly to understand how this happened and what paths to take were taken by her as a direct attack and criticism of what she had done. She says shes just not ready to start a recovery program yet. I immediately told her stop reading as I realized this was not doing anything to improve my "Love Bank" status with her. I had either attempted to start too soon or had her reading the wrong stuff.

I understand clearly that she is experiencing symptoms of guilt and withdrawal, which hopefully indicates that she has indeed cut off all contact with him. I am willing to give her more time to heal before we begin. In the meantime, trust is obviously a major issue for me. True or false, I do see her unwillingness to begin counseling as more evidence that she may not in fact have stopped seeing him, and while my trust in her has improved, it's still not high enough where I don't worry every minute when at work that she's going to run off and see him or set up a rendezvous when she goes out to the store for an hour. I'm not sure how to be certain that it's over, but considering they both are highly aware that I am watching very carefully, I've at least made it much more difficult.

All that being said, What I really want to know is how long should I wait to approach her again about counseling? When it does become time, what information on this site should I be showing her to "sell" this program in particular? I really like the concepts and the support options available at Marriage Builders, But I want buy in from her so I know she will put in real effort.

Please help, I really do want to save our marriage. Not just for my Daughter's sake, but for mine and hers as well.

EH

Welcome to MB, and I am sorry to read of these events in your marriage.

I'm also very sorry to say that this affair is continuing, and that it probably started before your child was born. You say it began after, so could you tell me what makes you think it did? Have you seen evidence about the beginnings of the affair - text messages that describe their first meeting, for example?

It is very worrying that she began the affair before you had been married for two years (by your own account), and soon after having a child. Was she at home full-time when that happened? How did she meet OM under those circumstances? Who is he - a neighbour, a work colleague, an old boyfriend? Since you describe their having had sex regularly and having seen each other every day, he must live within accessible distance to you. You will never recover under those conditions, and indeed, you should not even try. You need to move far away from him immediately if you are to stand a chance of recovering; you need to rent out your home if you own it, or give up the lease if you are renting. You need to do this yesterday. If you have read Dr Harley's articles as you say you have, you must have seen the advice to move away from home - and give up the job, if the affair was with a work colleague. You must have seen that he describes extraordinary precautions to prevent the affair continuing, and from what i can see in your post, not a single one of those EPs has been taken.

For example, you do not mention exposing the affair. Is this man married or with a girlfriend? Have you told that person? Have you told the workplace, if he is connected via work? Have you told supportive family members on both sides (yours and hers) and asked them for support in getting your wife to end the affair and rebuild the marriage? If your wife has not been held accountable to his wife and your families for what she has done, she will feel no compulsion to end contact with this man and not do it again.

The thing about women having affairs is that they do not usually hook up for sex, as the man in the same affair does. (Hooking up for sex does not stop the man from falling in love and pursuing your wife even when he knows you know about it, by the way.) Women usually do not take the step to have an affair until they are ready to fall in love with someone else - or possibly, were in love with the other man at an earlier time in their lives - where he was an old boyfriend or ex-husband. You saw yourself the messages that they sent showing their love for each other (although I am sceptical that OM felt as strongly as your wife did ; he said the things he knew she needed to hear to stay in the affair). You saw that she was "deeply in love". You must not believe that she could give this up just because you found out about it, and because she has given you her word.

Her letting you see her phone means nothing. If she is continuing the affair - which she is - she knows she needs to put you off guard. She has another means to communicate that you do not know about, and her going back to work will be the perfect place from which she can contact him and meet him. Your wife has a secret affair phone which she uses in the car - you need to bug this - and email accounts of which you are unaware. You need to put a keylogger on her devices and spyware on her phone. If she is deleting her messages and clearing her sent/received files frequently, you will not see evidence of her contact.

You are correct to see red flags in her unwilling to go to counselling - but whatever you do, do not go to traditional counselling. Do not talk her into this. Traditional counsellors will not know how to ensure permanent non-contact (NC) between her and OM, and will have no idea how to rebuild the marriage once that has been achieved. At worse they will encourage you to give your wife space, to trust her word, and to let her go back to work so that she can be unhappy, given that she will probably tell them that she is unhappy staying at home with your child.

In short: you need to

• Expose
  
• Spy -without letting her know of your suspicions in any way
  
• Move, this week
  
• Hold off on her going back to work. That is off the table now until you have moved, establised NC and begun recovery.
  
• If there is any chance that your wife is reading this thread you are in trouble, because she will stop your attempt to spy.

Come back and tell us what you know about this OM and we'll take it from there.

I don't know when they first met, but I recovered the entire text message log from her phone, including 70,000 between them. The first was sent two months after my daughter as born, and was basically an "exchange of numbers" text. I also have about 200 photos.

That's also right around the time my wife completely shut down to me emotionally. She had a bit of a breakdown right around then where she mostly expressed her unhappiness with me. I thought it was Post Partum Depression, so I didn't think much of it at the time other than to let her calm down, but now I know it was a cry for help of sorts.

She was working part time when it began. She met him through work, though they do not work together. He was a client. She did not quit work until well after the affair was off and running. To the best of my knowledge they did not know each other before the affair began.

I have not exposed the affair to anyone on either side, except for my wife and two of my personal friends. I am struggling with that, but I am coming to the realization that it needs to happen immediately.

I installed a GPS device in her car early this week. She has not yet lied once about where she is going since I caught her the second time. I also track her mileage, and it's been checking out. Though she admitted (before I installed it actually) that she's paranoid that I'm tracking her and secretly accessing her phone.

I plan on installing a keystroke logger immediately as well.

If she has a hidden phone, it's less than a week old. everything documenting the affair was on her primary phone. I will be on the lookout.

As for the OM, he is married with 3 kids, two from his current marriage. The oldest is 18, the other two are younger. I would guess the youngest is no older than 7. He's 42, has been married for 13 years and is clearly dissatisfied. I don't think this is his first affair. He really seems to "know the game". I have some evidence that he was cheated on in a past marriage, though that's tough to confirm from text conversation. I am fairly confident he lives with his wife and family, though I have evidence that he has other residences.

He's a police officer who works one town over from us, which made it very easy for them to get together, since he works day shift and she was often home.

The main reason it ended, if indeed it has, was because both I discovered the affair and because he expressed a clear unwillingness to leave his wife right now. I have evidence of that from text messages.

The new job she has accepted is in a different town away from where most of the rendezvous were occurring. At the very least they cannot reasonably meet while he's on duty. It's also much closer to my place of employment than my home or former job, so I'll be able to physically check up on her more easily if need be. I actually feel safer with her there than sitting at home.

Moving is unfortunately not an option right now, though I know it would help tremendously.

For what its worth, my wife has been more convincing in the last few days that she wants to try to reconcile, though I am leery of her sincerity. She has agreed to seek counseling from the very beginning. This morning after my initial post I told her I needed concrete evidence from her that she has had zero contact with OM. She said she would gather what she could and present it to me. She also apologized for not wanting to read further into counseling last night and offered to try again today. Should I entertain that, or should I hold off until we've addressed the other steps you've outlined?

I had planned to tell her that today we are telling the OM's wife. I wanted to wait until Friday evening to do that so I know where she is in the days following the exposure and prevent them from attempting to meet. We will be together with friends all weekend, and they'll have no chance see each other.

She likely won't read this. She only knows of this site from what I showed her and I'm using a handle that she would never suspect.

EH

EH, I would absolutely not tell her in advance. It is a strategic mistake to forewarn cheaters, because that gives them a chance to pre-empt you and spin the story. It also starts completely unnecessary fights that often results in a failed exposure.

I would pick up the phone today and inform the OM's wife of the affair and offer to send her all the evidence. I would follow up with a phone call or email to your family and friends about the affair, using the templates on my exposure thread.


Today will be ideal because you can also enlist the help of these friends.

Given all I've said, and you that you should have read on here by now, I hope you've firmly abandoned the idea of telling her that you intend to tell OMW. You do know, don't you, that if she suspects that this is coming, she will warn OM and he will keep his wife away from the phone or email? He we tell her, first, that a nut-job civilian on his beat fell in love with him, then she told her H, who, being an equal nut-job, is threatening all manner of stuff, and that his wife should ignore any communication about an affair, and tell him about it.

He might also answer emails on her behalf, saying that she knows all about the affair, she is rebuilding her marriage and she never wants to hear from you again. You need to speak to her directly on the phone, or write to her work email address (easily found on the Internet) - and DO NOT leave a message on a answering machine, where it can be wiped.

Don't let your wife know anything about your plans to expose, or to spy.

Since this man is a police officer and seems to have been doing this on the job (pun intended), you need to expose him to his line of command. It is completely unacceptable from the force's point of view for him to have been bonking on the job - under cover of the job - and exposure to them - and his wife - gives you a 100% chance of killing this affair.

I would avoid counseling because it is such a wild card. Most counselors don't understand infidelity and have no earthly idea how to save a marriage afterwards. They tend to give marriage wrecking advice such as giving the cheater "space" or asking the cheaters spouse to move out for a 'trial separation." They don't understand the FOG dynamic of cheating

WE can give you a step by step program to turn this around if you are willing. The program comes from Dr Bill Harley, clinical psychologist and founder of Marriage Builders. The program really does work.

p..s when you expose the affair to the OM's wife, I would give her your wife's phone # so she can call her with any questions.

His employer should be informed of what he is doing on the job!

You need to expose the affair ASAP. Dday was just a week ago. There is NO WAY that the affair is over yet. Your WW saying she is sorry, promises of NC mean, and wanting to go to MC means nothing. Toss the MC too...that is a waste of time and can make matters even worse.

You need to contact the BW pronto...WITHOUT telling your WW...that would be foolish and a giant mistake. Give BW some of the texts and photos as evidence. You have soooo much that I would only give her some of the most damning ones for now so she doesn't get so overwhelmed that she misses big &^%#@s that OM can not explain away....like a text that says he is going to leave her for WW. You can give her more later but I wouldn't give her 70,000 texts yet.

Your WW is still wayward. Do not speak to her about MB. You are trying to educate a drunk.

Welcome to MB.

OK. I had a discussion with her over the weekend that I was struggling with the idea of not telling his wife. She didn't try hard to stop me, but didn't encourage it either. She said she was afraid of further contact by him, either to her or to me. I said that I wasn't afraid of him, but that for now I wouldn't. If she is in contact with him, then she may have warned him already as a contingency plan, but I have photos that prove I'm not lying which I can include in any correspondence.

I will take your advice and contact her and his employer without my wife's knowledge. My main fear is that it will draw them to reconnect, but this will probably be a moot point since I'll have destroyed his life anyway.

She may also decide to leave and take the baby, though she can't really go anywhere but back home to her parents 2 hours away. I fear being apart from my daughter the most right now.

As for her comment regarding counseling, she meant she was willing to revisit looking at this site specifically, not another service or site.

Eddie, you are better off blowing up the affair and dealing with the drama now. Waiting or dragging out exposure is ALWAYS a bad move...ALWAYS. Exposure isn't ever pretty but it is necessary or you will have ZERO chance of recovering your marriage. If you don't kill this affair this POS will never go away and can even come around your child. Do you want that POS around your daughter?


Don't let fear guide you. Even if she did leave and take the baby, it would be temporary. She could leave anytime whether you expose or not. Exposure will give you the support you (and even WW) need.

Agreed. It will be done. Tonight when I get home from work. This way I'll know where my daughter and wife are when it happens.

This is good to hear. Please do this TODAY and go read through the exposure thread linked in my signature.

If his life is "destroyed" it won't be because of you, but because of his own unprofessional, immoral behavior.


Don't worry. She will be back soon. And you will have to inform her parents of the affair too.


Thanks for the clarification.

You will find it very difficult to expose the affair from home with her there. Can you expose today from another location?

What about obtaining a restraining order of some kind? Is it even possible? He is a police officer, so to say I'm not concerned about retaliation would be a lie.

You should expose to parents, siblings and any influential targets. If WW goes to her parents, they should know why she is on their doorstep. WW shouldn't be given the opportunity to spin some lame story about why she is there...including you kicked her out, are crazy etc. Even if she doesn't leave, if her parents and siblings (?) are decent people, they should want to shake some sense into her...especially since you have a child with her. They should know who POSOM is so that this loser will not be welcomed either.

This is why it is so important for you to expose to his personnel department TODAY. They will likely pull him off the beat and put him on a desk job or suspend him. If he DARED retaliate, you could take out a restraining order, which would likely wreck his career. He would be crazy to trifle with you.

What do you mean? If you expose him to his employers and they discipline him, do you think he's going to go to your home and beat you up? Do you seriously think he would risk doing that?

I don't know. likely not, but I can't help but fear the worst. I'm trying to cover all my bases before going down this road.

I would not worry about this. That he is law enforcement also has it's benefit. If he does anything to harass you or act crazy, he is only going to bury himself even more. Once you expose, eyes will be on him. You can request a RO later if he pulls anything but he would have to pull something to give you reason to apply for one.

Most OM are complete weenies...even law enforcement officers.