Here is my story so far... (All summed up) I want to handle this well, but it's killing me...

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We've been married 5 yrs with a 2 yr old daughter. We have gradually slipped into a lifeless marriage where we seldom interact. I have tried many times to engage her in just about ANY activity, but she is seldom interested.

DATE: 5-18 - 5-20
She wants to have sex. This is not normal for her. But I think it might be a good turning point.

5-21
While having a stuffed up head from being sick, She starts sleeping away from me in a chair. She can't actually get to sleep though.

She buys new birth control while we are at a grocery store.(Vaginal Film)

5-24
She tells me that she wants to separate and that she "loves me, but that she is not IN LOVE with me." AND she is not interested in reconciling.
She says: "I am a bad person, you deserve better"
She cries or freaks out if I tell her that I love her.
She says that I am "in denial"
I try to talk to her about marriage aids, books, councilors, etc. She is not interested.

Other vague circumstancial evidence:
* She has recently lost weight, mostly by not eating...
* She has started to wear new lingerie. Although I had bought her some a while ago, and she had other unworn sets, she finally brings them all out now.

5-25?
After being advised to take a I look, i snoop at her email & visited web pages...
I CONFRONT HER:
* She has used 3 Vaginal Film patches although we have not had ANY sex since she bought them. She claims that she was testing them... The directions suggest trying a few of these before actualy having sex.
* I found that she had looked up articles online about "cheating" and "Telling your spouse that you have cheated" --She says that she had THOUGHT about cheating, because she was so unhappy.
* 3 slightly suspicious Emails from a guy at the Y. The only recent one said: "Both of us look pretty bad in this picture" and contained a link that didn't lead to any picture. ??? (She says that the guys at the Y are just friends)

5-26
She deletes an email from YGuy from her main email account.
(Not very useful info, but she didn't delete other unimportant emails that she would have if she was just "cleaining her email".

5-27 (My spyware tells me...)
She starts using a secret email account to correspond with this YGuy.
She moves her cell phone and it's charger & her purse to beside her bed instead of where we normally keep them in the kitchen.

5-28-05 NEWS:
She went shopping.
She bought herself new sexy underwear. She also bought me some new underwear too. (As a cover?)

Cell phone bill.
I discovered today, that she changed our cell phone billing instructions. Instead of them sending us a paper bill, now they will send us an E-statement directly to her new/secret account!!

She checked the secret account, again.

I check and it seems that another Vaginal Film might be missing. (Not positive)

5-29
I had gotten the book "NOT Just Friends". She was furious when she found it and demanded that I return it to the library.

I am taking my daughter to a family event today. Wife, or course, doesn't want to go. She was annoyed at me after I asked her what she would be doing a couple times.
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SO, I'd like to confront her, but I hav to get more evidence first. It's hard to wait!!!

Gramn,

Ummm,,,doesn't look good, does it. Red flags all over the place.

Sometimes laying low and keeping a close eye on what's going on is the ONLY way you will get an admission.

With the additional evidence of the birth control purchase, be VERY careful with SF now. Testing should be a prerequisite before SF.

And in the meanwhile,,Plan A, Plan A, Plan A!!!!

I'm on "Plan A" like crazy...

I'm not expecting SF any time soon, if ever.
I hope she is careful though.

Hi Gramn,

I went back and read your other posts.I can truly sympathize with how you are doing right now.You may not have enough "concrete" evidence about your W having an A but all the rest speaks volumes.Even some classics like the "ILYBINILWY"(I Love You But I'm Not In Love With You) speech.Lost "sparks"."I am a bad person,you deserve better"(guilt perhaps?).Separation desires.Etc,etc.I do believe from what you have been posting that your W is having an A.If not sexual(probably) then an EA for sure.I know everyone is advising you to wait until you have more evidence,and that's ok but something is not right and I don't think it's the AD's.That's JMHO.Difficulty with sexual performance may also be due to internal guilt/confusion if she is having sex with some other guy or just confused about her feelings/"loyalty" to you or OM.

Just keep at it as best you can.It can be mentally,emotionally,physically draining playing the PI and many times the WS will drive the A underground even more if they know you are watching.

Are you in counseling together?

O

We're supposed to see a councilor wednesday, but from what I've heard, if there is an affair, then counciling might not help much. As it is now, she is not at all willing to try and make this work.

By the way, all of your acronyms are getting to be too much for me, Octobergirl! I couldn't even figure out what "AD" was in the acronym index...

I don't know what to think.. She is going around telling all of her friends and family about this break up so that they will support her. I'd rather keep this private. These people might "support her", but they might do more harm than good.

AD=Anti-Depressants

Gramn,

Sorry about the acronym's but I thought since you have been here some time now, you would know them.At the top of this board there is a thread on acronym's and similies,etc.

A=Affair
OM=Other Man
JMHO=Just my humble opinion
EA=Emotional affair
AD's=Antidepressants

And you are right.If an A is going on,*Marital counseling is a waste of time and money but IC(Individual counseling) is not.It's not a surprise that your W doesn't want to go.If she is having an A then most do not see the point of going.By the time the A has been discovered,they think the marriage has been "over" in their minds for years and years,usually unbeknownst to us as their spouse.

And don't worry about what other's think.You can do damage control if certain people are close to you or keep mum about it all until you know more.It's your choice but it is hard to stand by and not say anything.I knew there were certain people that would need to hear my side of the story(there are always 2 sides) because I knew my WH would not be totally honest with how things went horribly wrong.

Hang in there.

O

Yeah, this all really is killing me. I'm not even sure if something is going on or not at this point. It's driving me crazy...

I think you know what is going on. You just don't have the details and the concrete proof.

Your wife is hiding her cell phone, hiding access to the on-line account summary. Why the he(( would she, after the years of marriage? Because there is something she doesn't want you to know. Something more deadly than a flatulent stomach. You are now the enemy. The bad guy. the guy who "just doesn't understand."

Some posters here have purchased voice activated tape recorders and used them to get evidence of cheating. You could buy two, one for under her bed, one for in her car. Since you are sleeping apart, she can contact him from your bedroom, should be interesting hearing only her side of the conversation even.

You do know what's going on. Hard evidence isn't really needed, but if it will make you feel better, the voice activated tape recorders might be helpful to you.

Keep in mind, that even if you had the two of them on film, en flagrante, screaming "I love you!" and showed it to her, she would twist it around and make you the bad guy. She is in the Betrayer's Fog.

I also add my voice to the others here, counseling while one spouse is in contact with affair partner is a waste of time and money. It ought to be part of the therapists's code of ethics not to attempt marriage counseling while the cheating spouse is in any contact at all with the affair partner. (Unrealistic, you can't enforce that kind of thing, but I can dream......)

Well, if she is having an A, the trail seems to have gone cold. It might be that her OM is out of town for a week, but it is hard to just wait not knowing if I'm missing whatever is going on...

Be patient and keep checking. The OM might be out of town, or your wife could have a way to contact him that you don't know about yet.....
Meanwhile, Plan A

I'm trying to be nonjudgmental and all that. Is there anything that I should be especially aware of?

Be a wonderful, loving Hubby, and take her car to the car wash. Search it with a fine tooth comb. Women are sentimental and save lots of things. I see you have the keylogger... that's great. Have you put a recorder on your home phone? Can you view her cell phone bill online?

Have you had a close confidant follow her and document her whereabouts? Have you searched her unused purses, coat pockets, the bag she takes to exercise? Have you counted/verified birth control devices other than the pill? Have you check "last number dialed" on your home phones? (some will save more than one)

Have you checked credit card records, lunch for 2?, purchases of lingerie that you've never seen? Restaurants or clubs you've never heard of, new "romantic" CD's? Have you checked odometer readings against where she says she's going?

These are some of the things that consumed my life in the days before I got full proof from the phone recorder, and some e-mails a friend of mine rescued from the deleted file on our computer.

Stick around, and the fine people here will help you through this.

Best wishes,
SD

How do you do that "last numbr dialed" thing on your home phone?

It's just the "redial" function. My phones hold about 5 numbers there....some only hold one.

SD

That was a good idea, but the redial memory was empty...