Ok Where I live and every state is different so you should really find out about your state or country.

Here is a link to a website explaining all of this. It quotes both federal and NJ state law.

http://www.divorcesource.com/NJ/ARTICLES/sliwinski30.html

Again each state is different and most importantly each judge is different.

He's telling me both. he even said that hiding a digital recorder in her car or bedroom is illegal. hiring a PI is okay.

Sorry but just in case you don't get to the bottom of the article make sure you take not of this.

"An experienced divorce lawyer can actually use the act of illegal wiretapping as grounds to file a civil suit against the violating spouse. The civil suit will be filed as part of the divorce case and it is called a Tevis claim. The cheating spouse can actually use the wiretapping violation as a bargaining chip to obtain a more favorable divorce settlement. "

pctome, sorry I'm behind on your thread, but I have a little experience with email theft: my former wife and her affair partner swiped mine, and OM brought cherry-picked sections of them to family court as evidence that his wife was irresponsible, unbalanced, and consorting with a subversive organization (MB).

I think the legal advice you received is good. Assuming your state has actually defined a crime such as unlawful access to stored information (what it's called where I live), it's unlikely you'd ever be prosecuted for what you did, but exposing the affair using these purloined emails might backfire on you in court. It depends on the judge, which is something you can't control.

You don't want to rely on dubious stuff like hidden recorders and stolen emails. You may rationalize those things any way you want, but that's not important. What's important is how the court sees it.

The truth usually comes out, one way or another.

GC

Pctome,

Get a second opinion from a different lawyer. If they both say the same thing, you must go with what they say. Each state has its own laws. Be sure to double check this.

Nonetheless, you don’t have to prove to your WW that she is committing adultery. She knows. You know. Your job is to simply let her know that you know, not to convince her that she is committing adultery. There is really no need to reveal your sources.

Be sure to check these links below, they have some very good information you may want to pursue.

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/sho...;page=0#3014240

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/sho...rt=all&vc=1

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/sho...rt=all&vc=1

Expose ASAP. No ifs and buts. Even if WW denies the A, she will be hard press to later introduce OM to her family and friends. You must not delay exposure, as it is the best tool you have to destroy the A.

If after exposure, WW wants to leave…she leaves ALONE. Your son stays with you. This is not negotiable. BTW I would contact my attorney today to make sure he is ready to move on this should WW want to take your son away from you.

Further, under no circumstances do you leave your house. If WW wants to separate, she leaves…ALONE. You need to MAN UP for this next stage of the process.

After you expose, expect WW to be furious at you. That is what they all do. That's ok. You M can survive WW’s temporary anger and venoms, but it will not survive her adultery. Her adultery is the number one threat to your M right now.

I still think you should expose during the MC session Friday. Just stake your claim that you know what's going on. How you know is irrelevant. "I've learned of your activities with OM." This would be accurate, obviously. Let her imagine an informant tipped you off. Make sure you name OM.


By all means bring up the "cost" of her affair if she chooses to continue it. Infer that you have no intention of giving up your child. You don't have to surrender to joint custody right now - even though that's likely where it might end up if divorce happens. Female WSs easily rationalize that they will have an easy time getting full custody - it fits with their fantasy.

WAT

I am not a lawyer so take this with a pinch of salt...

There is a vast difference between the quality of proof required to expose and the quality of proof required in court. If you know and are sure that OM is OM and there is an affair going on then you have a couple of options:

(1) Expose without referring to the e-mails. Just say you know WW is having an affair, name OM, tell of when and how they meet and when pressed to say how you know then just say “I know”. Leave it at that. Do you think her father will not believe you simply because you don’t have DNA evidence or a smoking gun? At the least he or some of the people you expose to will talk to WW creating the pressure exposure is supposed to create.

(2) Using the evidence you have create a situation that enables you to get “usable” evidence. “Usable” depends on what you want to do. If you want good enough evidence for court then use the access to e-mails to have a registered PI trail WW next time she goes to meet OM. At the least you will save a bunch of money on the PI.

(3) You can also send OM an e-mail stating you know of the affair and ask him his emotions and intentions to WW. I strongly recommend against involving OM in the marriage – including the affair! But chances are he will respond and you can use the e-mail he sends as evidence.

As far as using evidence for custody... You two are still a long way from that. Chances are that IF this goes so far then well before custody is decided the relationship with OM will be common knowledge and therefore admissible before the people who decide custody.

Basically follow the rule of using monitoring to gather info that you can then use to gather evidence – not gather evidence with monitoring.

Bingo, my WW's OM has vanished, he wont return her calls or e-mails or anything. I did call OM and said this "OM, call me at 123-4567" he must have called while i was fgone from the office, because if he got my voice mail he would have gotten my name and of course, knew I was her husband. he is nowhere to be found now. if he offed himself and is lying in a ditch somewhere that would be cool too <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" />

One thing though and WAT said this good, when you expose, make sure the people you expose to know your not getting revenge. Everysingle person I exposed my WW to that have sided with her, she has twisted them all into thinking that my using a keylogger to get her e-mail password was criminal and hurtfull and that expiosing her was nothing but vindictive.

Funny though, that everyone that is my friend or my side of the family stands by me. It's interesting how peoples minds work. and their loyalties.

Well, the WW and I are headed to our second session with the MC this morning. I know it's going to be a waste of time as long as the A is still going on. I'm not going to expose because I want to have solid proof before I make that move. Her family is a little strange and without proof they probably won't believe me. Although I think some of them already know and support it (sister & mom).

I've got a couple other tricks up my sleeve and I'm going to determine today which one gives me the best chance of getting the proof i need. This whole thing is starting to take it's toll on me. At this point, joint custody of our son is sounding pretty good.

I think it's a mistake not to confront her with what you know in the session.

WAT

Even if I don't have the proof to back it up?

I need to do some things to cover myself legally and then I think I can take that approach next week with the MC if I have to.

Yes, even if you don't have proof.

Just say you know what going on with OM.

You don't have to prove it.

Here's why > EVEN IF you had video of her boinking OM she would deny it. Yep, hard to believe, but remember you're not dealing with a rational person.

The important aspect is to communicate to her that you know. SHE knows! Despite the denials that will result - you will have caused her heart to skip a beat and it will affect her profoundly. Do not doubt this for an instant.

WAT

Please give us feedback after your MC session.

FYI I will not be around here over the weekend. I'll catch up on Monday.

WAT

Hey WAT, have you been following my thread at all? I'd like to send ya an e-mail

Mike - no I haven't, but I'll have a look. I try not to spread myself too thin. I end up getting folks confused. My oldstimers disease. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

WAT

Session with MC was ugly. It started off with her being emotional and crying and saying she doesn't know why she can't get herself into this marriage. she talked about how much i've hurt her, blah, blah, blah. The last 10 minutes were just arguing between us. i didn't confront, but i had heard enough of the fog talk and started to disagree with the false accusations about our marriage that were being made. i acknowleged we'd had problems but that i wasn't going to accept that the entire time has been miserable. this pissed her off and led to some heated exchanges.

i've gotten a lot of conflicting advice throughout the day as to what i should do. i'm not sure what direction to go in at this point. i know she will deny, deny, deny. i'll try to post some of my potential options over the weekend and see what everyone thinks is best.

we have another session with MC monday and i'm strongly leaning towards that being the day i expose.

i made up my mind i am going to expose on monday at session with mc. i'm not going to tip my hand, but i'm just going to look her in the eye and tell her i know. she can either come clean now or we can spend a lot of money dragging this out in court to learn what we all already know. i'm going to tell her that her cell phone records and all of her and his e-mails will be brought into evidence and there is no way from them to hide what's been going on. i'm sure she will deny, deny, deny, and then she will come home and move her stuff out.

what should be my next step...go expose to all of her family?

how long should i give her to come clean before i start the divorce in motion?

wish me luck!!!

What conflicting advice did you get? From whom?

I'm gone in a few minutes for the weekend.

WAT

two of my close friends have both been through D and they said forget my ww and just do everything i can to protect myself legally. they said that she would never change and that i would never be happy in a marriage with no trust.