I am from a small town and do not have access to much help. My wife and I went through a difficult time a couple of years ago. I suspected infidelity but could never prove it. We sort of worked out our problems and had a good year. Recently I got a telephone call from the husband of my wife's best friend. They are getting a divorce as he caught his wife cheating using a P.I. He lives two hours from me and we were not close as I told him about concerns that I had about our wives' behavior and I was forbidden from their house. My wife would go there frequently on trips. He called to apologize and to tell me about my wife bringing another man to his house on two separate trips. He stated that they drank heavily and kissed repeatedly. I learned that this was the gentleman who I suspected from my hometown. I confronted my wife and she cried for two weeks. She lied on several occasions when I asked her questions that I already knew the answers to. She finally stated that she had a lawyer and that she was going to file divorce back at the time that this happened. She stated that she pursued this gentleman because she had no intentions of staying married to me. She states that her cousin, who was at the party, miraculously talked her out of the affair and she never slept with the man even though they stayed at the same house on two occasions. She will not discuss the specifics of their relationship but only states that they never had sex. I cannot accept things as they stand. It is also complicated as we have two small children. I have demanded a polygraph test which she does not want to do. I have agreed to take one also but she always has some excuse. I love my children and want to stay in their lives but I have no desire to touch my wife as things stand. I want her to confess and to let me know why it will never happen again or to take the polygraph to prove her relative innocense. Am I thinking unclearly? Am I being unreasonable? Am I being selfish and disregarding my children's needs? I am at my wit's end and need help!!!

Hi bobsmiley,

There will be people tomorrow who can help you get started. In the meantime, start reading the info pages. On the main page of this site, click on the links to the right.

If you need more directions to the info pages, just give a holler.

Take care

Edited to add: Look for a post from WAT (WorthATry). He has a link to WAT's Quick Start Guide for the BS at the bottom of his posts.

Bobsmiley,

Sorry you find yourself needing to be here, but this is the best place for ya right now.

Do nothing rash right now. You need to calm down, and try to detach emotionally. Read all the relevant things here on the MB site. No yelling or brutality. If you want to save your M and keep the kids, be as nice as pie to her for the minute. It is called plan A. This is to not give her any reason to get farther away from you...mentally and physically.

For you anti depressents may help. For both of you a marriage counseler can work wonders, if you get the right one and you both are sincere about going. Look into that.

You are in for a long haul. Prepare yourself for it. Take care of yourself, get plenty of sleep, eat right, and excersize. Stay healthy and stay strong.

God bless you.

k

EDITED TO ADD: Tell your cousin you owe him/her a steak dinner! You may want to discuss that night and get his/her take on the matter.

Welcome to MB. You have brought a very difficult problem but will find good support here. There are tools you can use to help you figure this mess out.

Start out by reading the concepts section above. Then get the books: Surviving an Affair, His needs/Her needs (both are by Dr. W. Harley). Also get the book: Love must be tough by Dr. James Dobson. The 1st 2 books will teach you plans A & B which you can use to help yourself deal with this situation. If your W decides to return to the M and act as your W, then these plans can help her also. Until then, these plans will be primarily for your benefit.

Another recommendation is to call Jennifer C @ MB for some phone counseling. It is a very good program that c/b tailored to your situation. Jennifer will help you put a working plan together.

Secure your finances and protect the needs of your children. A WS is not family compatable so you will need to be 1 step ahead of her madness.

Create an immediate support group, c/b made up of your children, your pet, relatives, pastors, friends, co-workers, neighbors, etc.

Pray for a clear mind and a calm heart. You will also need lots of patience. Your WS (not your W) is not t/b trusted. She must earn back the trust of yourself and all who she betrayed.

Identify your ENs (emotional needs) and your boundaries. Work with Jennifer to combine your ENs, boundaries and come up with a working plan.

That's just for starters. Keep posting here and we will help where and when we can.

take care,
L.

I greatly appreciate the responses. I wanted to supply some extra info in response to inquiries in the responses. We did go to marriage counseling after this happened. On my second demand for a polygraph test, my wife went directly to our pastor to set up counseling. I agreed to go as I need this resolved as I am 43 and want to get on with my life in one direction or the other. He briefly questioned her about the relationship with the other man. She once again cried for fifteen minutes and swore on a bible that there was no sex involved. We met for several meetings to work on relationship skills but these did no good for me. The pastor then said that he wanted to meet with me personally outside the presence of my wife. We met and he told me to tell him every thing that had happened and why I thought my wife had cheated. We met for two sessions alone and to my suprise he stated that he was as sure as he could be that she had sex with the man and that she was lying to both of us. He stated that he wanted to continue to the joint sessions to give her a chance to confess in a safe environment so that things could be worked out in a constructive environment. My wife knew nothing of what went on in the two sessions but she could not find time in her busy schedule to go back for other sessions. The pastor wants us to work this thing out but he did say that we are in an extreme danger zone if she does not admit what she did. He feels that she has justified her actions in her mind and does not think that she really owes me anything. He feels that I am justified in demanding the polygraph test. I want to give her a solid ultimatum that either she takes the test or I am filing for divorce. I agree with the pastor that she should have no reason for refusal especially when I have agreed to take one also. It just scares me that this action might be pushing my children out the door when I want to stay and be in their lives on a daily basis. However, I also cannot stay with a woman that I have no desire to even touch for the next ten years until they both graduate high school.

First of all, calm down. I'm not sure from your post if you suspect the A to be happening now or if it was from a couple years ago. Do you think your wife is in an affair situation now?

Personally, I'd back off the polygraph thing. You might reverse babble her (see Orchid's link, she's a master at it). I tell my WH that when he started lying all the time, it became difficult to believe anything he ask to say. Perhaps, your wife would feel more comfortable with another counselor. Maybe it's difficult with a man or one as close as your pastor. What's most important to you, the admission of guilt or working on your marriage to lead her to a point of trust where she can tell you. All WS are in a fog. Many people on this forum of interesting advice about it.

Give it a little time. Affairs don't start overnight and don't resolve overnight. Divorces are expensive and time-consuming. Nobody's life is ever the same afterwards, especially children. It's worth giving it a little time to work out.

grapegirl, I appreciate the response. Firstly, I do not suspect my wife at the present time. I think she still has the tendency but is laying low because she has told friends that she honestly could not live without my money and her lifestyle. I do not want to believe this but I cannot turn a blind eye to things that she has said to people she confides in. I have strong concerns that her old life style would start back up if I forgave her and let her take her secrets to the grave. As far as other counselors go, she is much closer to the pastor than I am and she is the one how picked him in the first place. I wanted to get one perspective from you as a woman. The few women that I have confided in all have an aversion to the word "polygraph". I simply do not understand this. It only takes about fifteen minutes and you know exactly what you are dealing with. This seems so logical to me to get to the bottom of this with no ligering doubts to last a lifetime and to start over with a complete understanding of all the facts to build a firm foundation for the future. If I were caught then I would do anything my spouse needed if I truly wanted the relationship to work out. In women's eyes, are the emotions involved more important than what really happened? I know that if my wife caught me in a compromising position then I would welcome the chance to prove to her that I did nothing wrong especially a way to absolutely prove it to her with no doubts. It would be even more appealing if I was told that the matter would be dropped if no sex was involved. Even if there was a great deal of contact and even if they spent many hours holding hands and discusssing their new life together and how they were going to raise my children once they got me out of the way. (Yes, I made those promises to her in front of the counselor and I mean them). If there was a PA then I admit that I will have to know the details has to how long that it lasted and other circumstances such as did he end the affair over her objections and she came back to me because she had no other choice. That might be a dealbreaker but I think that I could work through other scenarios. I simply need absolute closure to this matter and any future relationship to be built on solid footing. I know that relationships do not come with guarantees but I want as much as possible before I expose my heart again. I would greatly appreciate a female perspective as to my thoughts.

bobsmiley -

Thank goodness you have found us. You need us very badly.
First let me say this, since I am a cynic. If your wife was drinking and spent the night with this man, and now refuses a lie detector test, I would assume that she had a PA with him.

That being my take on this, I think you need to figure out if you still want to be married and hold your family together. People feel differently about this, and you have the right to divorce her.

However, if your idea is to make a better marriage in the future, with a wife that you can trust and be proud of, you might want to thoroughly read this site. And don't worry if it seems strange to you. When I first read here, I thought everyone her was completely CRAZY. It just didn't make any sense to me for the BS to be the one to work so hard saving the marriage.

Were there any problems or issues that your wife complained about two years ago?

believer, I appreciate your response. To answer your question, our problems started the same way as most. We had two small children and a very busy schedule. It was very difficult on both of us. At some point, my wife started making a point to let me know how tired she was or about the parts of her body that were in agony every night about 8:30. We all know the significance of this. I made very feeble efforts to deal with this but did not give it my best effort because my pride got in the way. If she didn't want me then I would be damned if I wanted her. I started treating her like the mother of my children instead of my wife. If she was going to withhold sex for some reason, then I was going to retaliate by withholding communication. I know everyone has heard this saga a million times and you know how our relationship went after that point. I agree with you that there was a PA. If there was not then it was a one in a million occurence. However, that it what she wants me to believe and for our relationship to move forward based on this being the truth. From reading this site and talking with a counselor, this would be a tremendous mistake and would make any attempt at reconciliation futile if she does not have to admit the affair and deal with it. We will be right back at the same point in a year or two. I want her to confess and see if things can be worked out. However, if she wants me to believe that she is the one in a million time when nothing happened, then she is going to have to prove it to me. That is where the polygraph comes in take all doubts from my mind if this is the way she wants to handle her relationship with the other man. Is this unreasonable or is there another avenue to pursue because she has let me know that she is not going to talk about this anymore because nothing happened and I need to drop the subject because I am not perfect either?

Hi again. The MB philosophy is to start in Plan A and make it safe for a WS to be truthful. Insisting on a polygraph is not a way to increase intimacy.

I'm not saying that you should let everything drop though. That would never work, although that is what most WS's would prefer.

Hopefully some of the experts will chime in here.

Bob, you've got to break the cycle. That's part of what Plan A is about. It's examining the bad habits and actions and see how to improve yourself. Like believer says, increasing intimacy and communication. Figuring about what's important to both of you.

I did a lot of thinking last night about the your polygraph idea and why I and it seems other women are opposed to it. Part of it is that Mars/Venus thing. The polygraph idea appears to be the easy solution. Ya did it or ya didn't. No gray, all black and white. Maybe it gives you an answer but it's no way to build trust. Are you going to run to the polygraph place every time you have a question?

The truth is that you and all BS including me, are probably never, ever going to get all of our questions answered. Speaking for myself, I wouldn't trust the answers I got from my WH anyway. A polygraph test would not make it better. I would prefer to come to a point where I know I can trust what my H says. That's the philosophy of openness and truthfulness.

Part of recovery and marriage in general is choosing your battles. You may win the battle of the polygraph and learn WW has had a Pa. Does that build trust? Does that win the war? Plan A is a sly thing. Bob Pure can tell you about going at this from an angle and not straight at it. It's improving yourself. Being the person who deserves to be trusted is important too. What would you do with the information once you got it?

GrapeGirl -

You've got it EXACTLY. A polygraph is a man's answer. Many women cringe at the thought. Suppose his wife was telling the truth, and the polygraph proved it. How would that help the relationship? Of course he would feel better, but how would she feel?

Bob - I am absolutely amazed that your pastor thinks this is a good solution.

grapegirl and believer, you are providing me with much needed insight on this matter and this is greatly helping. I need to ask you about several other matters in response to your posts. I am understanding the response to the polygraph as the only other female friend that I can confide in is not big on the idea either for the same reasons. However, she simply says that I need to divorce my wife and find a decent woman. In case you are wondering, she is happily married and there has been nothing romantic between us. Not that this would preclude anything but she is also fifteen years older than I am and I look to her as an older sister. Her feelings are that any woman who wanted to still be married to me would want to sit down and tell me everything. She would also make every attempt to make things right in any way that she could. It has been nine months since I found out about my wife's relationship and five months since she quit going to the counseling that she started. As stated earlier, she refuses to discuss the subject and will only state that I need to forget about it and get over it. To any outsider, we look like the perfect married couple. We never fight or argue. We attend all of our children's events with big smiles on our faces. What people do not see is that we sleep in separate bedrooms because I cannot touch my wife under the circumstances and that appears to be fine with her. I know that if I approached her for sex, she would not turn me down under any circumstances and I have withstood this tempation many times. It simply would not be right for me to have sex with her like a piece of meat that I care nothing about. I guess most men would have no problem with this but I can't. I also have to see the other man on an almost daily basis. He lives about two miles from our house and his office is across the street from mine. My insides die a little more each time that I have to look at him not knowing the extent of my wife and his involvement even though I know they are not currently in touch. He is dating another woman but this does not stop my pain. I now that my wife will never confess under any circumstances no matter what our relationship. I have known her for thirteen years and this is not a guess but a certainty. If I stay with her then this will simply eat at me for the rest of my life as she has made it very plain that she will not address it. What does this say about her from a female perspective? What should I do in this regard? Any insight would be greatly appreciated as I try to understand this and cope.

Uffdah, Bob. I can feel your fustration and upset in every word. I think the need to know is eating you away. I also think that both of you are being gigantic conflict avoiders. I know a lot about this because there has been so much of it in my marriage. I've come to realize that in a relationship where there is no fighting, there are probably big, big hidden issues. I don't mean to be harsh but here I go...

Nobody can tell you when you get divorced. I CAN tell you that probably every BS on this forum has been told to dump their jerkface, lying, cheating spouse and find somebody who would appreciate them. You can take that advice. Just about everybody in the world would understand. The MB way is to say that you want to save your marriage and that your marriage can come out of this stronger than ever. There are many successes here: Mimi, Orchid, Bob Pure and lots of others. They know tons more about everything than I do. There are also a lot of people who have ended their marriages. Sad but they leave the M with the knowledge that they tried everything to save it. Sometimes the WS filed, sometimes the BS filed.

What is most important to you? Do you love your wife? Do you love your kids? Is the fact that she might have slept with another man too big of a wall for you to break through? Does it mar her perfection? Is it an "insult" to your manhood? Does your life, your wife, your kids, your house, both of your families, mean enough to you for you to jump this hurdle? If you divorce, your life, your wife's life, your kids' lives and all the little tendrils that come out from there will be affected. They will never be the same again.

If you think you need to move towards a divorce, then you need to stop the happy couple stuff. Make sure that this is what YOU want. Get the lawyers, plan the settlement, work out the custody, setup 2 households. It's a long, expensive, gutwrenching experience. If that's what you need to do, do it.

If you think that the whole of your life is worth saving, you are in a perfect position to do a Plan A. Lots of people who are much, much better at it than I can tell you how to do it. Plan A is about changing you. Helping to break the old patterns of anger and behavior. It's hard and I know I'm not very good at it.

Keep reading here. Strangely enough, all affairs and WS seem to follow the same pattern. Your wife will be somewhere on the curve. Is she in the fog where she doesn't seem to hear a darn thing you say? Has she ended contact and is in withdrawal. Maybe she didn't have a PA. Maybe she's in the grieving, pulling away process. WS never want to say anything. Maybe someday with patience and time she will.

Bob, it seems to me, in MVHO, that the clock is ticking on the timebomb that is your family. You have a chance to defuse it. You decide where you put your energy. It's up to you.

Don't think I'm trying to be mean. I just want you to really think (((((((Bob))))))))) That's a cyberhug.

Bob,

If you are thinking about getting a divorce, then I would say you are about ready to work on your marriage. Sounds odd doesn't it? Permit me to explain. If you want to work on this marriage, and given your W's lack of candor or preceived lack of candor, being able to "take it or leave it" will make it easier for you to work on the marriage.

First, while I am definitely NOT a woman, I think the polygraph is a bad idea. Here is why. No matter the answer, she will NOT have been honest with you. You will have simply dragged the "facts" out of her. What you need to rebuild this marriage is honesty.

Now consider why most people lie. It is to avoid the consequences of their actions. It is because of fear. IF you decide to work on this marriage, do your best to make sure that your W knows you are willing to work on it. Make sure your W knows she can talk to you without you exploding.

Start to work seriously. Now one of two things or perhaps both will happen. She willl be surprised that you are doing this. She may come to believe that you love her enough to get through and handle the truth and tell you. She may come to believe that she has a free pass and does not need to work on anything in the marriage. You cannot control that.

What you can decide is to go all out for say 6 months and then evaluate what you feel, what the situation is, and what you want to do next. Since you are willing to consider divorce, then there is no rush, but you will gain the added advantage of working on yourself, KNOWING you give your marriage your best shot at recovery, and knowing if things will change with some time and effort.

Right now you don't know these things. It may turn out to be true that her actions provide no more comfort than you feel now. Fine if that is the case then perhaps the right choice will be to divorce her. It might come to pass that she loves you enough to really work with you on the marriage, and that the "fact" of the PA or not is less relavent to you, than the "fact" that she was emotionally attached to someone else.

My point is invest in your marriage heavily right now, and you will find that no matter what has happened you will have invested in yourself AND given your W a chance.

Just some thoughts. Hope they help.

God Bless,

JL

PS: I would strongly suggest that you both get STD tested.

grape girl and just learning, I appreciate your comments and I understand what you are saying. I need your feedback in regards to my thoughts. I wanted to interject some more info as it is dificult to put everything that you need to say on this website. At one point, I had no doubts as to my love for my wife. However, now I do not know because I really do not know who she is and she is not willing to let me know. Now there is this other side that has come out and I do not know or recognize this person. It is like part of her is behind a curtain. Is that part a passing phase or is it the real person that I never really knew? I am troubled that this is a part of her personality that will always be there and I am just setting myself up for more heartache. When I got the telephone call about the OM, I started noticing other things that never threw up a red flag before. There is another man in town that I have barely known during my life. For the last three years, he has come up to my wife at the women's junior auxiliary ball and asked her to dance during a slow song. Like I said, I know this guy but just in passing. As far as I know, my wife does not know him at all because she is not from this town. The other guy's wife is at the ball and it is in front of her so I dismissed it as nothing. After I got my telephone call, I also confronted her about this. She stated that she did not know him and that she did not know why he asked her to dance. I asked her what they talked about and she said nothing. I asked her if she areed with me that this was very strange and would be troubling to me. She said that she understood that it was very strange but there was nothing that she could tell me. I asked if he he was hitting on her and she turned him down. I told her that I could understand this and that would be no problem. I told her that this would explain things and we would not discuss it anymore. However, she maintains that she does not know him, they talk about absolutely nothing during the dancing even though their lips are moving and she has no idea why he asks her to dance much less only slow songs. Do you understand why I am worried about having anything else to do with her? It is looking more like an ongoing problem that she will not acknowledge and no matter what other people might do, my wife will never confess no matter what happens in the future. I have done the nice thing for about six months now and she has taken it to mean that things are over as far as her indiscretions and she is settling back in. As I stated earlier, two of HER friends have let me know that she is only back for the financial security. Now, I think that she has things like she wants them. A nice home, family, no distractions of having to engage in sex and free to pursue her other interests, whatever they may be.

So Bob, is your goal in life to have a nice home, family, no sex and a wife who does whatever and whomever she wants? Are you just a wallet? (As my DS would say.) How do you visualize your life?

Perhaps what you are looking for is hard evidence. Your gut reaction is that your W is having an affair. You want your W to admit to something and she won't. Maybe you need to get a little more high tech. There are folks here who can tell you about GPS tracking devices, voice activated recorders, key loggers, and PIs. Would hard data put your mind at rest? Have to talked to dancing man's W? Just a call to say that you have concerns. Maybe she does too.

One of the first questions I asked on this forum after my D-Day was do WS have personality transplants? And the answer is a big yes. It's quite possible that you are dealing with someone else's girlfriend now instead of your wife. They are deep, deep, deep in the fog. Some folks prefer the kidnapped by aliens concept. This change is a hard one to deal with. A couple weeks ago, I had a very bad dinner with my WH. I spent that night and most of the next day crying. We're talking devestation city. After that dinner, the truth finally hit home that although the man who had sat across the table from me looked like my husband, when he opened his mouth he was somebody else. He is no longer a man that I can trust or talk to. He's put up a wall and there's no getting in. It's a crushing thing to realize. And I think that might be where you are at.

At that point, it's easy to say that you don't love your spouse. You need to remember that she is probably not the person you knew at this time.

Think very hard about what her friends are telling you. Are they enabling the affair? Are they trying to give you an excuse for D? Think what you know and want. That's all I can come up with right now.

Bob,

I think your dancing scenario carries no weight. People dance and exchange pleasantries (sp) but exchange no information. It happens all of the the time. I find it interesting that HER friends want to break you up. I find it interesting that another lady does as well. Why? What is the purpose?

I think that Grapegirl's suggestion of key loggers and phone taping might be a good idea. It is NOT admissible in court but you it might easy your mind.

Here is the part about you that does NOT make sense to me.

You say that you cannot have sex with her because you "THINK" she may have had sex with OM. What will change if you find out she did have sex with OM? Nothing! Is the answer.

You don't trust her. She has not done anything to address the affairs. Your efforts have apparently not worked, although you did say she was being nice. Just remember it is YOUR choice to not be intimate with her, so don't then turn around and say it is a "good" thing for her. You don't know that. All you know is that she has not bugged you for intimacy.

You are working on no data, but you have managed to widen the gap between your W and you. So in the infamous words of Dr. Phil "How's that workin fer ya?"

YOU have to make some decisions. You can decide to leave your W. You can decide to gather more data. You can decide to really work on your marriage. You can decide you both need counseling and go even if she will not. YOU control this Bob, not her. One thing you could do is be honest with her about your feelings and hopes. That way at least one of you is being honest in the marriage. But, finally there is the possibility that she has been honest with you about the OM that you know about. The fact is: You don't have any data to show that she is NOT telling you the truth. Remember that fact.

It all could be a well conceived game on her part to enjoy the life you provide her. It all could honestly be just as she presents it.

Your call, your choice, you make the plan, but quit with the conspiracy theories. You have no data, therefore you know nothing. Gather data if you want or need it. However you don't need any data if you have decided that you don't want to lead a celibate life, but cannot bring yourself to be intimate with your W. What could she possibly do to change your mind?

Please think about these things.

God Bless,

JL

grapegirl and just learning, I got to read your responses yesterday and to do a lot of comtemplating. I think that grapegirl and I are dealing with basically the same type of person. I know that your H's affair was exposed and this devastated you. I know that you might not feel this way but at least you know what you are dealing with and can confront it in your own way. I do not know what I am dealing with. As I stated earlier it would be a one in a million if there was no PA involving my wife. If I knew then I could make up my mind on a course of action. As with your H, I do not know if I know this woman anymore or if I ever knew her. Given that set of circumstances I do not know if I can commit to working on a relationship. Not with the possibility that the OM ended their relationship and she might be waiting until he changes his mind to go back to him. Maybe she is a serial adulterer. This could all be true or completely false. Who knows because she has locked the vault and does not intend to open it no matter what I do. Just learning, I took much of your response to heart and I agree that the current state of things is not working. I have tried kindness for five months(I know this is not an eternity but it is an effort under the circumstances). After reading your response, I sat down with my W last night for a talk after the children went to bed. I told her that things had to change and that honesty had to be put back in the relationship or it was doomed to failure. I told her that we had to discuss what happened so that we could properly deal with it and try to put it behind us. She informed me that I had a lot of nerve to approach her about honesty with my lies. I asked what she was talking about and she informed me that I hidden money from her on a regular basis and I lied to her about small things like when I went to play golf or not. This absolutely shocked me. She then proceeded to tell me that she was going to start calling me Mr. Secret Money Man. I started to call her Ms. Secret Adultery Woman but I held my tongue and that was the conversation. It just seems like too much of a brick wall to fight. I did want to respond with a little information about her sexuality. I must admit that I had knowledge of this before our marriage so I cannot hold it against her. She told me that she never had a sexual relationship that she enjoyed in her life before she met me. This might have been a lie because there is nothing special about me in that area. She was engaged when I met her and I asked her how she was engaged to a man and she did not enjoy the sex. She stated that sex was not that important to her until she met me(Might have gotten some smoke blown up my backside on that one). She stated that her fiance and she had sex in the beginning of the relationship but they stopped. She said that she did not want to hurt his feelings so she told him it was because of religious reasons. She also made a comment to me that it infuriated her to think that I had ever been with another woman prior to knowing her. Thinking back, I might should have left the table and ran and after I heard that. If she was a secret sexual dynamo then she hid it very well as she came off as very inexperienced during dating and the first part of our marriage(once again, might have been fooled by a woman I do not know). It has been a constant pursuit on my part which made the OM and her behavior more of a shock. Her responses to me last night and since I found out about the OM especially surprise me because of the things that I did to try and win her back before I found out about the OM. All the time that she was running around, I was sending flowers to her job. I would go home at lunch and clean the house so she did not have deal with it when she got home(which I still do). If she leaves me errand lists, I do them all during the day because my job is more flexible than hers. I make sure that I do my part with the children no matter how busy I get. I pay all of the bills out of my check and she gets to keep her check to spend on anything that she wants. No matter how bad things got, I never laid a hand on another woman, have never touched my wife in anger and have never verbally berated her. While she was running around, I went to her friends to beg their help in getting her back. I even went to her parents to beg their help in the marriage working out( that was one of the most difficult things I have ever done and I still cannot believe that I did it because she had filled their heads with false things about me and I had to listen to them berate me for an hour while I held my tongue). This eats at my core to think what I did while she was meeting another man but she does absolutely nothing for me after she gets caught. I guess this should tell me that she is here for the money until I make a move. I really do not know what to think.

Do you hide money? Are you open and honest about things? Just asking.

I am "fortunate" to know at least some of the details about my WH's A. A lot of it I don't know and am beginning not to care.

It really sounds to me like you need some hard data. There are too many unknowns. You either need to find out some facts or back off. You're not getting anywhere with feelings and he said/she said stuff. It alienating you from each other. You really need to have solid information that you can present to her and her family. You may find out that everything is fine and the appearance of an A is deceiving. You may find out something is very rotten in Denmark.

Take the girlfriends' conversation for what it's worth: nothing. Find out for yourself what's going on.