Sorry this is long.
My wife and I have a pretty good marriage (I thought). We are in our high 30's and have a couple of kids.
For the last 6 months I have commented on how many calls my wife makes to this one number on her cell phone. It shows on the cell bill. She always said it was a friend and that was the end of it. Just recently I noticed the calls were still there. One about everyday. Short calls but many.

I decided to call the number the other day after months of seeing it and a guy answered. My heart started racing and paniced. I asked my wife about it and she again said it was her friend phone and didn't know why a guy answered. She was upset with me checking up on here and I felt like a idiot and told her i was sorry and wouldn't second guess her again.

I couple of days later I was running using her mp3 player. She uses this in her car to listen to music in her car stereo. She must have hit record instead of stop and recorded a call to this number. I could hear the phone tons and then she talked to this guy. I could hear his voice. It was general conversation but it did seem to me that her voice showed feelings for this guy. I don't know. It's hard to tell.

I was upset when I got home and when she got home I even got choked up and cried. She asked what was wrong and I told her what happened. She sat down, held my hands and said she has been unhappy here and there for a long time and she talks to this guy at work to comfort her and to vent to. She says she does not have feelings for this guy and has never been with the guy but they work at the same place and they talk quite a bit. She says they talk about us, here feelings, etc. She said he has even helped her in dealing with me, etc. She said I would feel better once I heard his name.S he told me and I know him. He's quite a bit older than us and a guy I wouldn't think she would be attractive to at all. He is a nice guy though.

She said that I'm always upset about money. She scared to go buy anything in fear I will get upset. I do get upset (not crazy or anything). I have this fear of not having enough money if our savings goes down to far. I have worked on this an have gotten better. Its usually because she will not balance the check book and constitantly over draws our checking account draining our savings. She told me that she knows she needs to work on that. She also says I don't support her enough when she wants something or to do something. We do have a great time together. I didn't even know she was feeling this way. She says she uses him to vent to.

She agreed to stop talking to this guy and wanted us to make sure that we talk to each other. She said she is just as guilty as I. We just don't seem to talk if we are upset at each other. I told her that we should get some counciling. I told her I loved her very much and didn't want to loose her. She said she loved me very much too and doesn't want to loose me either. She said she didn't think we needed counciling. She says we just need to talk more.
She held me and stayed close to me all night and today I told her I need to know this is over and she said it is as of today.

Now things are running through my head. She has talked to this guy for 6 months almost every day. Surely there was some sort of feelings to call that often. I can see having someone to vent to and calling them every so often but every day. Did the nights she went to a girl friends house for a drink really end up at his place? My mind is really wondering. I don't want to keep talking about it and upset her more. I'd like to forget it and move on.

What should I do? Move on or find out more?

RIGHT NOW DO NOTHING.

Start reading the site.

Go out, get yourself a copy of Surviving An Affair, and get to reading.

Knowledge is power here, I can't stress that enough.

Do not bring OM up AGAIN. Keep your eyes and your ears open. You don't have anything yet.

Is he married?

This will get worse, before it gets better.

Watch her behavior, but make no comments.

This will work out, it's going to be hard on you, and I'm sorry you're here, but please, heed my advice.

DO NOTHING.

DON'T BRING IT UP AGAIN.

WATCH

WATCH

WATCH

There's more coming down the pipe. But if you aren't looking, you'll miss it.

She's in an emotional affair, and they all play out pretty much the same.

Read, read, read.

I might add something that's maybe obvious, but could be missed.. If you do read books like that, don't let your wife know until you have more information.. MY wife went ballistic when she saw a book that even hinted at help for people that had affairs... She went off the handle at me, angry at me, etc...

I didn't know she was having an affair at the time, and the book came free with some other books that an acquaintance sent me, b/c I knew in general there were probs with our marriage. I later (the past 2 weeks) found hard evidence of an affair. I never brought it up until I had the evidence. I asked her flat out if she was doing anything with this guy (online, not that it matters). She looked me in the eyes and said no, I'm not. I said are you sure, she replied with no, absolutely not. I said o.k, what if I had evidence of your affair, she still denied it completely and demanded to see the evidence. I gave it to her. If I hadn't had the evidence, she would have made me look like a paranoid fool.

Anyways, your W will take offense at anything that hints at an affair, well, at least my W did. If I suggested counseling, she told me there was nothing wrong, yet, deep down I knew something was wrong, but not what.

If you need the emotional support, I reccomend seeing a counselor by yourself. But that's tricky, you don't want to lie to your wife, this can be thrown back at you... At the same time, you don't if she's already rejected the idea, you don't want to seem paranoid to her. So, find a way to do it if you need the support and the guidance. Read the books suggested above if you can without her finding out. I dislike the suggestion of books, b/c my reading comprehention is so low it's hard for me to learn anything from them. I dropped out of college because I did so poorly at on multiple choice tests based on textbooks that I couldn't pass classes anymore. I enjoy reading, but I don't remember what I read afterwards. So, it has to be a really good book for me to consider wasting the time, b/c I remember as much after I"ve read the book as before I read it.. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

In short, be careful. You risk alienating her if she sees signs that your mistrusting her. Yet, you must do what you have to do to help yourself and expose the truth.

Slow:

Listen very carefully, what your next steps are can be critical to saving your marriage. I wished that I had seen signs of trouble before the A happened with my FWW but I was either too young, stupid or both. The advice above is very good. Tread lightly and keep your ears and eyes open. But I would suggest starting two other things immediately. The first is to read the info on here about the love bank and start making major deposits. Then when the time is right introduce the concept of radical honesty. My FWS's A did not last long, the PA was a one night deal and then the EA lasted about a year after that. Although this is really in the reverse order, if I had made deposits in the love bank at the right times I could have avoided the PA and most likely the following EA. But because we didn't have a policy of radical honesty until more than 10 yrs after the A happened, we caused a lot of hurt to each other in the process. If my wife could have just come to me and said you have to help me meet my EA, I would have at least had a chance to stop what would occur. But when the A happened, everything got much worse because of her guilt she withdrew from me which in turn made me take out more withdrawals out of the love bank and the cycle continues. It was not until I hit rock bottom that I finally demanded radical honesty which included D-Day on the A.

We are both recovering right now and we will make it and be stronger than ever. But the road to recovery is a rollercoaster and both parties have to be willing to commit to each other, share opening and reassure the other partner that they will be there for them when they are needed.

Also, don't start jumping over yourself trying to fix things.

This is a dead giveaway, and will get you nowhere, she may end up resenting it.

Read up on Plan A...if you read NOTHING ELSE...and a lot of that can be found right here on the site.

Ask questions, we have some really good Plan A'ers here, to guide you.

You want to be consistent with your actions, don't all of a sudden start sending her flowers, cards, calling her more than usual.

You've started opening up the communication, keep going with that.

I'll wait until you post back.

Hang in there.

I think you need to hear one of the "support" phone calls. Go to Radio Shack or Wallmart (I saw today someone got one at Walmart for $30 so try there first). Purchase a DIGITAL voice activated audio recording device (not the tape recorder kind) along with a bunch of batteries. Inquire about return policy as you can take it back if you discover nothing is going on. Fiddle around with it to learn how it works and insure it is in silent mode (no beeps). Place it where you are most likely to overhear a phone call, the kitchen, garage, her car.

This may seem over the top but it the best way for you to get the information you need without alerting your wife. Now that you have busted her potentially EA they may take their relationship underground (talk only at work, secret cell phone, signal rings on home phone or cell phone, pay phone, etc.). Even if they do go in hiding you may get a conversation she has with a friend that knows what is going on. Don't fret over invading her privacy. There is no privacy in marriage and the earlier you get the knowledge the earlier you can bust up any affair, emotional or otherwise.

I wish you well.

ACT OUT

She came home from work and said she talk to the guy and told him that we were now talking and she was no longer going to call him. She told me that she wants to talk to me now. She got me a card and said she she never wanted to hurt me again and wanted a long happy life together. She told the guy that I didn't believe he was the guy she described to me( again, I'm sure she's not attracted to him) and wanted to call him. He said to tell me to call him any time and he would confirm it was him and they just talked. He is quite a bit older and not very attractive. I guess he even has a girl friend. But they did talk almost every day or so.

We had a good weekend. I guess I'll just wait and see how things go. I have read about the love bank,etc. and will continue to work on that. I may be wrong, but I think she just used him to talk to because she didn't feel she could talk to me. I want to change that and it sounds like she wants to as well.