Post deleted by Zoomba

Hi Zoomba....sorry you're here....but welcome.

What do you know right now? What do you suspect? How can you get the basic facts before confronting?

I'd also suggest that you do a quick read of the basics here BEFORE you confront. Read up on Plan A, Plan B, and the general information on lovebusters, emotional needs, and how the 'love bank' works.

Then, sit down and give some thought to how the confrontation is likely to go. Think about what YOU want out of this...go into it with your own goals already in mind, and think about how your WH is going to respond, and have your responses to his comments/reactions already planned out.

Going into this with a plan will help you tackle this from a position of strength...you'll have more confidence and be more focused.

The questions from Starfish are right on the money...and knowing that info can help the people here give you advice on how to proceed.

Before you confront

consider what you will do with his response/reaction

what will you do if H lies?

what will you do if he gets angry?

what will you do if he breaks down and cries?

what will you do if he calls you a liar & a sneak & a crazy woman?

~~~> the last option is the most likely

get mentally prepared for any of these responses (and others)


you need to have proof before you confront or else H will find a sneakier method of hiding things

WELCOME

sorry you're here

Pep

Post deleted by Zoomba

Hey there,
sorry you are in this club. Being a betrayed spouse sucks. I didn't find the site for a couple of weeks after the day I discovered and confronted at the same time.

I was so stunned and devastated, I am not certain I could have held off confronting.

When I confronted at 5:15 in the afternoon, he denied it. Someone else must have been using his account. Too bad I let him know my proof- he deleted it.

1. Do not reveal your proof without good backup copies.

When I found the 2nd email account about 7 and called his cell phone and left him a screaming message that I KNEW he had f'd her, that was a pretty horrible awful moment for me.

2. Stay calm and present your proof in a logical method.

While he was on his way home, I Called a friend and she got me calm enough to make some plans and some rational decisions.

3. Form a plan- no, it may not go exactly as you planned, but you will have something to go on beside emotions.

When he came in the door I started screaming at him and he started crying and the story started spilling out and he told me it was over. Did I believe him? nope. (though he was telling the truth)

4. Verify EVERYTHING he tells you.

After that night, I had all of his passwords. We changed the emails addresses, etc. I looked in his cellphone, I cleaned out every piece of paper in his car, cleaned off his desk at work, everything.

5. Be diligent in holding him accountable- he needs to be an open book.

He honestly thought I would kick him out when I found out about the affair. I thought before that time I probably would if that happened- not that I ever expected it.

I decided I was going to fight for him- I had too much time and effort and love invested in him, not to mention 2 kids. I was going to fight for him. I think part of that was I watched both of our mothers pretty much hand over our dads to the OW. I was not going to do that.

6. You have to make the decison to fight or let go. If you fight, it will not be easy. You will face the rollercoaster of emotions that will threaten to drown you on some of the down days. There will be days when you think "ok, I can do this" and 20 minutes later you will be reeling.

I can honestly say that I am glad I stayed. I am glad I fought. It has been a battle that has brought us together as a couple and led me to some really close friends in this club.

I suggest you dig for info, get a plan, and fight like your marriage depends on it.



hang in there

Here is a post I just made just yesterday on the "Art of War" thread. It describes how I myself overcame the wayward wall of denial.



Don't hint at D-day and allow them time to think and prepare for the onslaught of questions. If they KNOW you know but not exactly what you know don't give them exactly what you know...deceive them that you know EVERYTHING. I call it cresting the wayward wall of denial. Preparation is key.

D-day should occur in person and when the wayward is unlikely to remove themselves from the situation. No distractions should be present and hopefully NO ACCESS to the OP. If your snooping reveals OP is going to be unavailable on Wednesday night from 6 to midnight, then have your d-day then. Another good place to have D-day is in the car with the BS driving. WS will not jump from the vehicle and MUST communicate.

Also, the wayward wall of denial must often be broken down with deception. The art of giving the perception you know all without really giving up what or how you know is important. For example, I was able to retrieve a couple of text messages to OM off Mrs.W's phone. I was also monitoring her email and eventually using the digital recorder. However, I convinced Mrs. W on D-day that I had obtained ALL of their text messages from the prior month directly from Verizon. I gave her the details of only the ones I saw on her phone and a couple of the ones that made it to her secret email account (they sometimes texted each other from the computer and the entire thread would often appear). I gave enough detail to make Mrs.W believe I had ALL the text messages even though this was not the case. I caught her off guard. If I had revealled this earlier to her by phone or in passing a little at a time perhaps she (and/or OM) could have discovered that I would not have been able to get such from Verizon. They would have plotted together to maintain the denials at all cost as technically I didn't and couldn't have actually SEEN them together. They could have thought out a ploy to say they knew I was watching and lied in the text messages to play with my mind. Instead, I caught her/them off-guard. I did not need to reveal ALL the information I had to convince her. My then current snooping techniques remained in place, unsuspected AND on top of that I cut off the text messages between them as they believed from then on that I could see all that was written.

I also played the Private Investigator ploy. I found out what color and make car he drove directly from her several days before d-day. Her initial physical contact was undertaken at a hotel near her parents home (750 miles away from me). I found the hotel receipt in one of her bags (waywards really make silly mistakes). I told her on D-day that I hired a PI and he followed OM to the mall where her credit card receipts indicated she was just minutes before checking into the hotel (Victoria Secret no less). My snooping had already confirmed that he met her at the mall prior to going to the hotel. So I laid out the PI followed his black ford whatever license plate abc 13 (another lie) to the ______ shopping mall then over to the xyz hotel where they were seen checking into together. The car stayed until x:xx am (the time I knew he left for work).

None of it was true, but it worked. It took hours but once I broke down the wayward wall of denial...we could really start focusing on the problem (her and the affair) instead of the avoiding, manipulations, blame shifting, and denials (we are "just freinds" crap). Mrs.W loves to talk (as evidenced by the length of her posts lol)....from that day forward I was able to discuss our relationship and her affair pretty openly and honestly without LB's. I was on the inside trying to work OUR way out. I drew her into intimacy with my friendship, love, empathy, and understanding. That part was not feigned nor was it easy. Thank God for MB which I found just a week or 10 days after D-day.

Moral of the story: Be prepared, be sneaky, and catch the Wayward spouse off-guard, unsuspecting and unprepared.

Mr. Wondering

You posted while I was posting. Thanks for giving more information.

Sounds like you do have a WH on your hands.

Can you check his emails?

Have you looked in his car?

You can use a voice activated recorder to monitor his calls in the car.

Does she work with him?

I would start on my exposure list as exposure needs to be done in one fell swoop.

You might want to alert the OWH before hand so that when you tell your H, he doesn't rush off and call her and then she tells her H that "a crazy woman is saying her h is sleeping with a alot of different women so if you get a call that I am sleeping with Joe, you'll know it is just his crazy wife"

Did you happen to copy the text messages? can you forwrd them to your phone?

I would also plan who else you are going to expose to. If it is work related, then there, of course.

His family? Your family? His friends?

Brainstorm here and formulate a plan

Zoomba, it sounds like you are well prepared. The only thing I would suggest, and you may have already done this, is to print up the emails you want to save. You will need them when you expose to the OWH. I would not tell your WS that you plan on telling him because they could pre-empt you. I would plan on telling the OWH as soon as possible so they don't do that anyway.

Don't ASK if he is in affair, but TELL him you know. That way you may eliminate that fruitless debate. Tell him you are having him watched and leave it at that if you can. This is true, because you are watching him.

If there is any way you can do this without giving away your sources, I would advise that. You don't want to lose these valuable resources. For example, you can say you know about the affair and that XYZ happened on such and such date and you would like an explanation.

Another suggestion is to put a keylogger on his computer BEFORE you tell him you know. Have the reports emailed to a central email acct like yahoo or something that you can access frm any computer. Otherwise he may change the passwords on his computer so you can see what he is doing.

A real good one is www.actmon.com home edition. Be sure and install it in invisible mode and restart your computer. Run your anti-virus and spyware to see if it detects the actmon. If it does, you can simply program them to ignore it.

And most of all, come here for support! Most of us have been through this and understand what you are feeling. You will get lots of support here! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Sometimes on D-day you must give up your source of information...like I did with Mrs.W's phone. But that was the only source I gave up, I made her think communicating that way was being monitored and I couldn't get access to the phone much anyway. You just switch tactics...recorder, keylogger, etc.

As far as getting the text messages printed. That might be tough since you have such limited access to the phone. Instead...get your digital recorder and record your d-day. You'll have a tape recording documenting all you need to convince OWH and/or any court.

$80 at Radio Shack...Voice Activated Digital Recorder plus a ton of batteries.

W

Great post MW! He just described the way to do it. I did most of the same I had a ton of evidence and she denied anyway.

The WS motto: Deny, Deny, Deny. They will probably get angry and they will Lie. Just do not avoid the conflict. Fight for what you want. Be prepared though that it is all your fault. WS when they are caught will say the fault lies with the BS.

One of my relatives XW blamed him for her affair when she was busted. Said she would never have an affair with anyone except for this one time because of him being a bad husband. What she did not know is her hubby found out when another jealous OM called in and told him about her affairs. She was sleeping with at least 3 people in the neighborhood.

The point is don’t let on all you know or how you got the info. My wife lied and I actually had video of them together and she could not deny anything after that. I let her go on and on and let her lie all she wanted but after that video she finally closed her mouth. So the moral of the story is expect him to lie.

Good luck to you. It sucks to be in this club but don’t be afraid to confront.

Post deleted by Zoomba

WH is self-employed

Make a copy of all financial documents, tax returns, bank statements and store such copy off premises. Just in case things go downhill...you'll want that copy cause in a divorce case...a self-employed man basically ends up an unemployed man with no money to pay support, alimony, etc and guess what...all the records are gone....musta got lost in the move.

You should also be sure to have some access to cash. In just a day or two he can clean you both out. You must be prepared to protect you and your kids financial interests. Just take some precautions. If you have a joint account with a substantial sum...go to the bank, open a savings or checking account in your name only and transfer a good chunck or 50-75% of it.

If you save your marriage your WH will get over the anger and realize what you did was in the best interests of the family. If divorced, you were smart.

Mr. Wondering

Don't worry about retirement savings as he can't access those without your signature...though if you have a financial planner or banker that you personally deal with that handles your investments you may want to advise him/her after D-day that your husband is having an affair and you fighting for your marriage. Sometimes a freindly advisor will give a spouse access to things without really witnessing the spouses signature. WH could just forge it. If your advisor and/or banker knows then you have alerted them to contact you should a large withdrawal attempt be undertaken by your WH (without your legitimate consent).

W

Listen to Mr. W on the financial things.

Do you have a friend who would spy for you at the watering hole?

Which city do you live in, you may get a voluntary spy here.

Can you tape the recorder under the seat?

Is his job in his car mainly?

Can you get to his office and put a recorder there?

What about you showing up at the watering hole?

Be prepared that if you confront him and he leaves the house or gets his phone- he is alerting OW. Make your call immediately to her H.

Quote

[color:"red"] Don't ASK if he is in affair, but TELL him you know. [/color]

triple ditto ditto ditto

here's a good way to start...

[color:"blue"]How painful has it been for you to keep your affair a secret from me? Has it been painful & difficult on your self-esteem knowing you are betraying your wife? [/color]

When you decide to confront ... don't confront with a "Are you having an affair..."

lead in with your concern FOR his well-being

it will confuse and disarm him simultaneously

Let us know when you plan to launch

Pep

drop your kids off at grandma's

expose to them 1st

ask if the kids can spend the night

tell his parents YOU want the M to work & YOU have a plan & ask them to support your efforts to save your family

Pep

Post deleted by Zoomba

Does your H understand that anything that he does that he would not do if you were standing by his side constitutes cheating?

This not about him offering up the cell phone, or inviting you down to the watering hole. This about him giving you the comfort that he will not engage in any activities that he would not do if you were not there by his side. What is he doing to accomplish this?

This does not sound like he think's it's no big deal. At the VERY least, he was deliberately hiding the relationship (whatever it is) from you.

This shows that he is not completely trustworthy. Since I wouldn't trust someone who isn't trustworthy, I would not believe what he says without verification.

Speaking as a FWS, I completely deflected my H's initial confrontation about my A. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" /> He totally bought it. Obviously, that's a point of shame for me NOW, but at the time all I thought was "Whew! Close one! Better be more careful about hiding things."

I hope I'm wrong....I hope he's telling the truth. But, in my experience people who don't have anything to hide DON'T hide anything.

Lori