New to the forum. I am 47, my wife is 41. We have five children, ages 16 down to four. Married since 1998.

I don't want to type everything out, so I'll just provide the high (low) lights.

In July of '15, my wife received an e-mail from a male friend that she has known since childhood. They never dated, but perhaps had feelings of some degree at some time in the past. They had, to my knowledge, kept in contact after we got married, but it was only sporadic (two or three times a year) and never anything to be concerned about. In this particular e-mail, he expressed desire for her. He is in the Coast Guard, and regularly was at sea away from his own wife and kids (2). He lives and works in VA, we live in New England.

That e-mail started a back-and-forth string of e-mails that led to him telling my wife in September 2015 that they would have to be very careful to keep their respective spouses in the dark about what was going on. My wife responded with something very close to "don't worry about [1987], he isn't like that (being jealous). He wouldn't suspect a thing because he trusts me."

On November 16, 2015, I had a heart attack. Their e-mails were still going strong at that time, and I had no idea what was happening between the two of them.

By December, she was starting to share songs with him, the first being "Photograph" by Ed Sheeran. (When I found the e-mails and the song, I listened to it and was devastated. Crushed. Absolutely ripped apart. More on that later)

Also in December, he had them switch their comms from e-mails to "Words with Friends," a scrabble type of app game on their cell phones. There, they could message each other within the app and it would never show up in e-mails or on our cell phone bills. They played each other all the time (I did not know this until summer of '16) and of course messaged each other all the time through the app, too.

At some point in the winter, they switched to "Palringo," a gaming/messaging app on their phones where they could share pictures.

In February, my wife mentioned going to NJ and SC to see her family (none of them live around us anymore, they all moved away). I told her she should go and that we'd buy her the plane tickets. "No," she said, "I want to drive." At that instant, I thought it was curious that she'd say that, and I wondered about her Coast Guard buddy in VA, but didn't think too deeply on it and let it go.

By spring time, I was going to bed nearly every night alone and she'd come to bed hours after me. She also was being VERY guarded with her phone. It's amazing that it never dawned on me what was going on. She ALWAYS had her phone on her person, and if I walked nearby, she'd either subtly turn it so I couldn't see what was on it, or she'd simply turn it off instantly. I can't believe I didn't catch on. I guess I that's the nature of trust, isn't it?

Anyway, by early July, she was preparing for her trip, which originally was to be seven days, then she asked for eight, and then ten. The night before she was to leave, I asked her if we were OK and if there was something wrong. She said we were OK and that we were experiencing just normal married things, nothing big.

The day she left, my mother told me that my wife previously mentioned to her that she wanted to see "some friends" while away. My wife never said a word to me. My mother also told me these exact words, "You better start paying more attention to your wife, because she's having an affair."

I was floored. I couldn't believe it. I was even miffed at my mother for saying such a thing. I had a feeling that something wasn't right for a while now, but I could never put my finger on it, so I didn't dwell on it.

Anyway, aside from texting me to tell me she had arrived in NJ, I didn't hear from her for two days. When we did finally speak, I asked her if she was going to drive straight through to SC. The phone went silent.

"I was hoping to stop and see [her Coast Guard buddy] on the way."

At that, I sort of unloaded on her, but not in a mean way. I told her she was obviously planning on seeing him right from the start when she planned the trip six months ago, and that she never bothered to tell me. I was pretty miffed. I told her she might as well, because no matter what I said was going to change anything. I was angry.

So she stopped to see him at his workplace (somewhere in VA, and it was somehow Coast Guard related) and then continued on to SC to see other family members.

While she was in SC, we talked at length about things, and it was pretty raw. Even though I was angry about her secret plans, I STILL didn't think anything like an affair was going on. I just couldn't wrap my mind around it. Even so, I suspected I was losing her to a degree (or more), and I was breaking down. I was bawling my eyes out while alone back home, realizing that something was happening with my wife that wasn't good and it was breaking me.

After a few days of late night phone calls that lasted for hours, we seemed to patch things up and there was an uneasy calm for the remainder of her trip.

When she got home, we had a magical night together, where we both committed to working harder on our marriage.

I made drastic changes. I was helping her more around the house. Leaving her love notes here and there. We were going out on dates. We started a family prayer time every night. On the surface, things were going much, much better. She appeared to be much happier, too.

However, she was still on her phone a lot. She was still guarding her phone, but not as diligently. I gave her the password to my phone, saying no part of my life should ever be off limits to her in order to make her more amenable to giving me her password. She reluctantly gave it to me. This provided an opportunity to look through her phone (it is in my name and I pay the bill) to see exactly what was going on with it.

On night of September 9th, I found the e-mails I referenced earlier. I also saw the song. I also could tell she was sending pics to him last fall, but the pics weren't viewable. Clearly, they had established a covert relationship that was way over the line. She was cheating on me.

That morning (the 10th), while we were outside on lawn chairs with coffee, I brought out my laptop and told her I wanted to show her something. I went to Youtube and started playing "Photograph," and just looked at her. She started tearing up, and I said these words to her, "That's a beautiful song to share with someone you love."

At that, I implored her to tell me what was going on, and all she could muster was a plea to let the past stay in the past. After some conversation, I let it go.

The next day, I attended a 9/11 remembrance ceremony, and when I got home, I brought her outside again and asked her again what was going on, what she did. I told her I saw a lot on her phone, but I needed her to tell me with her own mouth. I needed her to come clean. She finally told me. There were elements of everything (they confided everything with each other, they sent nude pics back and forth, they sexted, they told each other they loved each other, that they had codes for a bunch of stuff, the works. She denied they ever had sex, however. She still denies it.

I told her she needed to contact him that day in my presence and tell him they were never to contact each other again. She did that.

So D-day was 9/11/16. We've been working on our marriage since. There's quite a bit to say about our reconciliation, but I'm wiped out from all this typing and reliving it again, so perhaps I will save it for later.

I saw some of the pics she sent him, and yes, they are quite graphic and hurtful. Aside from the pics, the only other things I've seen are the e-mails from last fall. While I know the messages from WWF and Palringo would be far, far more damaging to see, I sort of wish I could see all that, but I don't know if it's possible. I wish it was. I want to see exactly what was said. Maybe it would destroy me again, given that we appear to be on better footing now and making progress...but I still want to know exactly what transpired. While I saw some pics, I wish I could retrieve all the pics from the phone. I don't know why, but I want to see them. I'm not a techie, so I'm not sure how to go about that or even if it's possible.

Anyway, I have cried so many tears in the aftermath of D-day, it isn't funny. Her cheating and deceit utterly broke me. Three months post D-day, I believe we are doing better, but I don't know if I will ever forget this betrayal.

I never thought my wife would do this.

Welcome to MB and sorry for what has brought you here.

What spyware do you have on her devices so you can monitor her? Has she changed all contact information?

Has the avenue of how she conducted the affair been closed?

Sorry for your pain, 1987. You can be sure they had sex on her trip. That is what the trip was all about. Have her take a polygraph if she is denying it. If she refuses you have your answer.

Read Surving an Affair by Dr. Willard Harley. It will help you form a plan to kill this affair, which I would bet is still going on, and it will offer a plan for recovery. You need a plan.

Welcome to MB. I am very sorry for this painful experience you have been through!

Dr Harley has created a plan that can heal your marriage from an affair, and make it better than it has ever been.

Have you exposed her affair? If not, this needs to be done. Please go read the Exposure 101 thread and start compiling a list of exposure targets. This is something that many people want to avoid, but it is the single greatest thing you can do to 1) end the affair 2) provide accountability to your WW so she does not restart or continue the affair and 3) get support for your marriage.

Once you have all your questions answered about the affair, you should never discuss it again. You should focus on affair proofing your marriage and making it better than its ever been.

If you do not feel like you have gotten the truth, specifically about the EA being a PA, I would ask your WW to do a polygraph test. We have a poster on here who found out that the EA her husband had 16 years ago was actually a PA, and is devastated all over again. We do not want this to be you. If you do not care whether the EA was a PA then maybe it is not important to get this info, but if you do and will continue to wonder, I would highly suggest a polygraph.

Dr Harley advises couples to take extraordinary precautions to protect their marriage from affairs.

Please tell us what has been done from this list.

From Surviving an Affair, pg 66-67

Checklist for How Affairs Should End

_____The unfaithful spouse should reveal information about the affair to the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should make a commitment to the betrayed spouse to never see or talk to the lover OP again.

_____The unfaithful spouse should write a letter to the lover OP ending the relationship and send it with the approval of the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should take extraordinary precautions to guarantee total separation from the lover OP:

_____Block potential communication with the lover OP (change e-mail address and home and cell phone numbers, and close all social networking accounts; have voice messages and mail monitored by the betrayed spouse).

_____Account for time (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a twenty-four-hour daily schedule with locations and telephone numbers).

_____Account for money (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a complete account of all money spent).

_____Spend leisure time together.

_____Change jobs and relocate if necessary.

_____Avoid overnight separation.

_____Allow technical accountability.

_____ Expose affair to family members, clergy, and/or friends.

I saw your post in the Operation Investigation forum.

Your WW should have No Contact with her AP forever. She should not only stop communicating with him, but also make communicating with him next to impossible. She should change phone numbers and email addresses, and of course she should get off of any social media or app that they used to communicate. There is no reason she needs to have Words with Friends or any other game.

Even if the affair has ended, any time her AP contacts her or she contacts him, or even looks at his facebook or sees him logged in online somewhere, it will trigger her. It will keep her in the affair fog and prevent your marriage from recovering. It could also lead to them reconnecting and starting the affair all over again. And it also is a huge trigger for you, making you feel unsafe, which you should because it is dangerous and will prevent recovery! So you can see it is very very important to establish no contact and follow the EP's regarding that 100%.

I am not sure if you can retrieve old messages from the apps, but you can install a keylogger on her phone, ipad or computer now to monitor her and make sure the affair is over.

Here is where I am right now:

A. Whereas I had no trust in my wife for the first month or two after D-day on 9/11/16, I now have some trust. I guess you could say my default setting isn't "unbelief" anymore. It's somewhere between not believing her and completely believing her.

B. My good days are getting almost normal and they are increasing in number and frequency. The bad days aren't quite as bad as the first couple of months after D-day.

C. My thirst for every detail isn't as strong as it was. I still wonder about a few things (such as whether or not it got physical in any way, or exactly badly she misrepresented me to her AP).

D. My desire to know the "whys" is also starting to wane. I guess you could say I am less concerned about the affair now and more concerned about what she's doing currently (if what I'm seeing from her is real and genuine, and not just a front like her life during the affair). I really want to monitor her phone for a while to confirm whether or not she's being completely honest about her actions now.

E. I still cry from time to time now, but it's only about once a week or so. I trusted her so completely, so thoroughly, that this episode shook me down to my core and ripped my life apart. Sometimes I still can't believe she did what she did.

For some reason, she held on to the AP's contact info after D-day. I let it slide for about a month after D-day, and finally confronted her about it. She said she just never got around to deleting it, but that she never used it or contacted him in any way since D-day. In my presence, she deleted it that day.

She also deleted him from her "friends" list on Words with Friends. Of course, he may have an alternate username, but without going completely Magnum, PI I wouldn't ever find out about it.

I am somewhat-to-mostly trusting of her when she says she's been completely "clean" since D-day.

Dr Harley does not advise blind trust. This is because, under the right circumstances, ALL of us are wired to have an affair. You have unfortunately found this out the hard way. It would be silly to give her blind trust right now, when she has proven herself untrustworthy. You can rebuild some trust through the actions I have posted to this thread, while also VERIFYING through snooping that she is acting trustworthy.

It is silly to blindly trust someone who has behaved so untrustworthy. Holding on to her AP's information is an untrustworthy action. Doing everything she can do to change her information so that it is next to impossible for him to contact her or her to contact him is a trustworthy action, but she has not done that. She instead held onto his contact information. Again, you should not be giving her blind trust.

If she is serious about ending her affair and saving your marriage, she needs to change her phone number completely, and get off any and all social media or apps that she used to communicate with him (or could in the future).

I am sorry to say that based on what you have told us, she doesn't seem very serious about ending contact with him. I am very concerned you have more DDays coming in the future my friend. If you do not put EP's into place to protect your marriage, it is very likely this affair will rekindle, if it hasn't already.

Thank you for the replies, including this one.

While I acknowledge that being at ground zero, I won't have the most objective perspective of what's going on, I still am fairly certain she's been faithful since D-day. Yes, a few things here and there have stuck in my craw over the last three months, but overall I see no hard evidence of continued infidelity.

Of course, I still don't trust her completely and I am still quite hypersensitive to everything she says and does (what I mean is that my "spidey senses" are still operating at full power). This is why I want to install a key logger on her phone, so I can monitor what's going on when I'm not in visual range. With enough passage of time (and her being faithful), I will be able to trust her again.

Having said that, I'd like to ask a different question about the (aftermath of the) affair:

I've been wrestling with telling the OBS about what transpired between my wife and the AP. My wife is adamant about NC being honored since D-day and that she will never do this again, so I have reasonable belief that the affair is indeed over and has been since at least 9/11/16.

This is also further complicated because about ten years ago (or more), the AP informed my wife that his wife cheated on him while he was at sea. So, for years, my wife and I knew that he was a BS and had some measure of sympathy for him because of it. Of course, it is possible that the AP lied back then and his wife never did cheat on him, but I think it's quite possible he was cheated on.

So this leaves me in a quandary: Do I contact the AP's wife and tell her about the affair between her H and my wife? Or do I simply chalk it up to two spouses who deserve each other and each other's infidelity?

Do I ignore the very real possibility that she cheated on him and still tell her of an affair that is now over? Is there anything to gain by that?

I don't know what to do.

1987, yes, you should most definitely tell the other betrayed spouse. She has a right and a need to know so she can protect herself and her children from your wife and her husband. Just ask yourself what you would do if you knew her bookkeeper was stealing her money behind her back? You would tell her, right? Well, adultery is a more serious crime than embezzlement.

I would quietly reach out to the OMW [other man's wife] and tell her everything you know about the affair. Give her any evidence you have. You can tell your wife afterwards.

I wanted to add the above to the discussion about trust. Your wife knows you have an odd desire to "trust" her and uses this against you. It is too much trust that leads to affairs. You have learned this the hard way. It is not a lack of trust that ruins marriages but a lack of boundaries.

I agree with you that the lack of boundaries was what got her in trouble. She and I have spent some time discussing that issue.

As far as my trust goes, I don't believe for a second that I had "an odd desire to trust her." I simply DID trust her. There was never a reason NOT to trust her...until this. Now, that trust is shot to hell and it will take a long, long time of her being faithful again to earn it back.

I gotcha. Just know that she knew you had a blind trust for her and used that knowledge in pursuing her affair. Dr. Harley actually says "it is too much trust that leads to affairs." And this is very true. Most of us trusted way too much and learned the hard way!

Quick update for you all. I know there is quite a bit of experience here in dealing with these matters, so I want to open up a little bit about where I am right now.

We are exactly three months post D-day (actually, three months plus one day). In my heart, I (want) to believe my wife has been faithful. In my mind, I believe there is a very good chance that she's been faithful, too. Yes, there have been a few instances here and there where I've seen things that make me wonder, but they haven't been "smoking gun" type of things, just stuff that I don't know what to do with.

I love my wife. I've always loved her. I gave my heart to her on our wedding day (even before that, but you understand) and have never strayed from her. Our marriage of 18 years hasn't always been peachy, but quite a bit of it has. It's been the last few years that's been a little rough.

I started a construction business one year after we got married and still run it today. I am also involved in government and politics (first at the state level and now strictly local), and that has dominated a lot of my time. Our marriage issues stem largely due to my focus outside the home and family, leaving my wife to run the household. She said she felt alone, neglected, and like a single mother of our five children.

Anyway, not sure why I posted all that, but my current dilemma is this: I love my wife. I always have. This entire thing (her affair) destroyed me. It destroyed my entire way of looking at the world, including her. I love her, but there are times when I still am in disbelief that she did this. I'll be driving, thinking about it all, and I just blurt out, "WHY?? Why Leah?? How could you do this??"

There are times when I don't want to exist anymore. I wish I could just disappear, and not be alive, almost like George Bailey in "It's a Wonderful Life."

I get angry at times when I'm alone, too. I don't show it to anyone other than my parents, who've ended up being the only people I can vent to.

There are still times when I cry at the drop of a hat. I don't understand it.

There are also times when I want to tell my wife she needs to leave, if only because it seems like all the consequences have been shouldered by me. She seems happy, and I'm thankful for that, but damnit I'm still wounded here and everybody's so happy. Shouldn't I be? Why am I feeling this way?

You guys have experience in this. What's going on with me? I want to live happily ever after with my wife, why am I feeling this way?

You feel this way because you have experienced the most devastating thing you can experience in a marriage. You CAN have better days, but only if you truly recover your marriage in the right way.

Where are you at with confirming no contact (snooping)?

What have you done to fill in the gaps in your EP's?

Has she answered all of your questions, and if so, are you still talking about the affair?

You can overcome this, personally and in your marriage, if you affair proof your marriage and then make it the best it has ever been. If you do not do these things, you will continue to feel anger and resentment for years.