Hello all, new to the boards. Short story is I just confirmed some sort of affair by WW. I 'd like to provide some background because I am seeking advice on how best to proceed.

Let me start by stating my goals:
1)I would prefer to salvage my marriage. We have 2 children, ages son 41/2 and daughter 2. I could not bear to be parted from them and believe their needs would be best served by having both of their parents raising them in the same household. I think I still love my WW, but I am not sure we can be happy together.

2)If I cannot save my marriage, I want to achieve the best divorce settlement possible. I would want the kids to have both of their parents in their life. My idea of the best divorce settlement possible would include the kids living with me.

3)Either way, 1, or 2 I want to get beyond all of the negativity I have been feeling.

OK, now the facts of our marriage:
1)Me 38, WW 38. Married 09/16/1995.
2)WW 1st PA (possible one night stand) 12/98
3)Almost divorced summer Y2K (I read SAA and we narrowly avoided it)
4)DS born 07/02
5)DD born 12/04
6)Last 6 month have felt like #3
7)Dec 16 '06 we decided to work on the marriage using Dr. Harley resources
8)Confirmed affair today, but not confronted or anything yet. WW probably suspects that I suspect but doesn't know that I KNOW.

So obviously I am freaked out today. It just so happened that I had to work early morning hours for maintenancde window and have been at home all day trying to acto normal. Broke down and started up some R talk but stepped back from the ledge since I do not yet have enough evidence to confront or inform other parties. Glad I read the Infidelity stuff BEFORE I found out!

So I need to know the best way to proceed from here. I need to gather sufficient evidence to achieve the goals above, but don't know if I have the patience or discipline to not confront prematurely.

The downside is that we have joint everything accounts except her corporate checking and my personal checking that I use for online purchasing, keep that separate from our main checking so as to not get nailed in a scam. My paychecks are currently direct deposited into the joint personal checking. My brother and his wife have agreed to assist with resources until I can access money discreetly.

So what are the recommendations? Hire private investigator? Snooping i have done so far indicates that cell is only method of contact, no email or house phone usage. Confirmation info that I had today indicates that WW wants to meet tomorrow or Friday, prior to her leaving for a trade show on Sat. I guess a constraint on the goals above is I want to discover enough to be able to inform OMW, WW father, mother brother etc. in a credible manner if it is necessary.

I am dizzy now, so I will wait for your advice.

OK...how did you prove it to yourself? What evidence do you have? What more do you feel you need to confront her or to expose with?

How is she carrying on her affair?

You've got the acronyms down well, which suggests you've started reading the information on this site. Start by learning about plan A and B. Start working your plan A...putting pressure on her to end the affair, and fix the issues that you're responsible for in your marriage.

Get a copy of HNHN and SAA...start reading those.

Let us know more information on her affair, who/how/when/where...so we can help you figure out how to get the info you need to expose.

Sorry, re-read your post. You noted that cell is her main method of carrying on the affair right now. Was your proof in captured texts, or was it in a large amount of calls, what?

When is she making these calls? Can you get a digital voice activated recorder and use it to capture her side of the conversation?

Have you read the thread "For Newly Betrayed spouses" on the Infidelity Just Found Out board. It summarizes much of what you need to do and it's not too long. Also, link off of Longhorn's signature lines to the spying 101 thread. But I think you may already be doing the digitial recorder thing (which you need not disclose).

Don't bring your WW to these forums or indicate you are being assisted. You need this resource to remain confidential.

The PI for tomorrow or friday would be a great way to bust her...if you can afford it. The credit card bill won't appear for a month.

Exposure, with credible proof MAY just do the trick. Time will tell. Remember, on D-Day, when you confront, that SHE knows she's having an affair. Though she will deny it you don't have to show all your cards and destroy all methods you have to effectively snoop just to prove to her you know. She will want all the information ONLY so she can figure out how she can deny it. As long as you are convinced, that's enough for exposure.

Good luck and welcome to MB.

Mr. Wondering

Also,

Don't move out no matter what.

Prior to confronting, protect your families assets by separating your bank accounts. A good rule of thumb is there are 4 of you in the family. Thus, you remove 3/4 or 75% of the joint assets to protect them. Depending on your confort level, cancel joint credit cards to insure she doesn't seek a cash advance in order to assist her with moving out. If you just report them stolen and make them unusable for a couple days, then, while waiting for the replacement cards, you give yourself time to decide whether to cancel them or not.

Just don't enable her moving out. Don't talk divorce only reconciliation. Be wary of bogus spousal abuse claims to get your thrown out of the house. Record your interactions to protect yourself. But...if the law comes, respect their authority no matter what or you'll never win anything. Remain calm.

Mr. Wondering

Who is the OM? How did they meet? Is OM married? How close are both of you to her parents? How would they react if they found out she was cheating? What happened after your WW's first A? Did she show remorse and come back of her own will, or did she act like she didn't want to be married? What barriers did you enact in your M to prevent an A from happening again after the first A? What is the root cause of the problems in your M? Why do you want to stay together with a serial cheater? What state do you live in and what are the D laws?

Whatever happens, do not let them get together on Thursday or Friday. Bust them on their way to doing the deed. Preferably hire a PI. Do not let it happen! That is what I regret most, knowing they were meeting up and allowing it to happen. I feel that I should have stopped it.

Once you get the proof, expose to EVERYONE! OM's significant other and parents, WW's family and friend, WW's boss and HR manager if they met through work, church leaders, anyone and everyone that would be in a position to put pressure on the A.

She will be pissed. Don't worry, they all are when they get caught. It will die down in a few weeks. Just get to a point where there is NC and you will see an improvement after about a month.

Oh, and cut off your WW's cell phone after you bust her. Don't let her talk to OM. Delete his number and change her number if you insist on letting her keep it (i.e. to keep track of her). Do not negotiate these points, just do it yourself. She will try and intimidate you into getting what she wants. Don't let her.

Owl-
Proved to myself with overheard WW half of conversation.

Not a lot of details as to how she is carrying it on, but I have regular office hours, she is a sales rep and works from home office and travels extensively. Based on what I do know they are only in same town when at home.

Read SAA years ago, will need to pick up another copy since I lost it. I have read HNHN and wW has read about 3/4 HNHN then quit. I am reading LB right now.

OM is a former coworker. WW actually worked with OM as a peer at about the time of a previous known PA. He moved to our hometown and one of them contacted the other. I am guessing it was him but who knows? As of right now though WW is suggesting a meeting and for him to not call when I am expected to be at home with her.

AS far as proof, we have family share plan for cell service. I noticed an oddball number in the call log in the past, found on the monthly statement that there were 6-10 calls & texts to this number, but on reviewing the logs on the phone, they are deleted. Occasionally all will be deleted, but the majority of the time it is ONLY these. Then I picked up a new number on the cell bill and called it (after blocking caller id) and it is the corp office of OM. The calls are made while I am at work.


MrW,
Yes, I know I can expose her to me, but I have read these forums and have had many conversations with her. I am guessing that she will deny, deny, deny and not agree to NC. I want to be prepared to expose to OMW, family friends etc in order to build the pressure. I will need to convincing proof for them I believe. I can envision a scenario where WW denies to them as well and says that I am blowing out of proportion our current M issues. In fact I expect her to use that tactic with me. I will not want to reveal my sources in order to not compromise them, but will want to state known facts of the A in order to demonstrate unequivocally that I know.

I won't move out. I am so glad I found that here. Finances will be pretty tricky. Right now WW does all the bill paying, takes care of it during the day while I am at work. I will cancel CC and separate finances before confronting. Change my direct deposit away form joint account.

As far as moving out/bogus spousal abuse claims how do you fight that? Worse yet what if she claims some sort of bogus child abuse claims? Should I start taking them to physician preemptively weekly or bi-weekly and explain my fears and have then examine child regularly to defuse that possibility?

As far as OM married or not, no idea, I know he has kids but not state of his M. We are fairly close to both sets of parents. Her parents are divorced from each other and I am not sure how they would react. They may just want her to be happy, but I know that they both respect me as a husband and father.

WW 1st affair was with one of her best friends (female), I walked in on it. We were spending the night at those friend's house after too much drinking. I ended up driving home anyway. At that time WW said it was just an isolated occurrence. At that time she showed remorse.

Barriers to prevent future affair, well really none. The near divorce was 18 months or so after that and had to do with WW disappointment in my ambition. This was right after a career change for me so I could pursue something I enjoyed doing and I took a big paycut. I did not work hard before the career change, but have had decent success since then. I currently make a living that most people in the US would consider pretty good. WW has done a ENQ from this site for me and her#1 EN is FS and she indicated a number that is 3X my current pay. This was filled out while A was in effect, I just didn't know.

jmwc95,
As far as the root cause, I would say on my end it is a load of DJs, not in an overt way, but kind of subtle and therefore probably worse as WW cannot get a handle on objecting --> I always appear to be the calm rational one. On her end I would guess it is EN of FS not being what she expected it would be when we were dating. We met in college while I was on a National Merit Scholarship and I wanted to go to veterinary school. Working in a vet hospital convinced me otherwise and I set adrift and ended up dropping out, never graduating. So legitimate beef there until the carreer change and I now have a senior technical position with still a fair amount of ceiling before I would cap out my earning potential.

So it is Thursday now and I do not know the "plan" for the meet. I would use it to gather tangible proof if I did know. I would need to stay home from work today (and tomorrow too probably) to block it. Just started new job 3 months ago and PTO is still tight. I also feel that I may have to accept that price in order to gather better intel. Hopefully PI can assist with better monitoring tools and I can relax about gathering intel.

As far as "why would you want to stay with a serial cheater?" Excellent question and I am not sure I do. I am definitely feeling fear but of what exactly, I am not sure. Things I am sure about are: I do believe that the best environment to raise children is in home with a happy marriage between their real parents. I have not been smart about maintaining my marriage. I believe that it would be possible to create a wonderful home for my children if WW and I can together implement Dr. Harley's system. When we are/were happy together, WW did good job of meeting my EN. I know she is capable. I am willing to give it one last try if we can commit to total transparency.

So thanks all for feedback, feels good to bat around ideas and develop plans instead of worry about M and A. Just struggling with desire to expose/confront right away as my proof could look flimsy if the persons it was shown to had a desire to deny (her parents, brother). Cell calls and one instance of "Don't call tomorrow, H will be here, maybe we can see each other Th or Fri". I have a need to be more thorough because WW is/will be very convincing when she tells her story. Did I mention she is a sales rep? I am IT nerd ;-)

Also, as far as cancelling cell service etc...she makes better money than me and handles the bills, there is nothing stopping her from just getting a new one that I do not have access to. I think that once I do confront, and if she agree to NC then I will insist on number change. She WILL be pissed and may not agree to that since she also uses that phone # for a lot of business. We'll see.

Oh yea, one last thing. We had a pretty good night tonight and after kids were put to bed I told her I was going to bed right away, I had been up since 0100 and had only had about 4 hrs sleep. She came to bed right away with me, 2030 hrs so pretty early but not unheard of. She snuggled up close and offered to rub my back, I told her I'd rather just go to sleep, she then offered to have sex. I said I was too tired and tried to not let her feel me cringe at the thought.

Is this normal? Do you think she is trying to defuse my insecurities in order to be able to facilitate her A without suspicion? She knows SF is a big EN for me. We also had sex Sat night, the night she returned from a trade show. I'd like to fill her SF needs in order to not enhance the chance A gets physical (may already be), but I don't want any diseases and do not think I could actually perform. Is trying a bad idea?

She might be trying to butter you up so that you don't suspect anything. DO NOT ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN! Either take off work (explain what is going on to them, and they will usually more than happy to help you out with something like this), or buck up and hire a PI. You do not want to allow this to get physical. The PI will also be able to gather more info on the OM. Remember, a PI is cheaper than a D lawyer. I don't care what you do, but do not allow your WW and OM to hook up!!!

Also, read up on plan A and start working on it. What are her top 5 ENs? You need to figure out how you were LBing and cut that out immediately. I was guilty of subtle little DJ jabs myself. Guess what, those don't get you anywhere but in the situation we are in now.

OK, so I am waiting for the PI to get into the office, ought to be there any minute. I have prepared his initial questionnaire . I think it may already be physical, at this point I am more concerned with tangible proof good enough for others. No way I could stop it without prior knowledge of the plans. It seems these are made while I am at work or she is in car. I can sometimes find out afterwards, but would need real time surveillance in order to prevent.

I actually have been working on Plan A. Actually, I thought we were both doing it. Top 5 are:
1) FS - I have a good job but she says she needs spouse making 250K to be full fulfilled here...
2) Affection - I seem to be meeting her needs for affection, maybe some more cards flowers stuff would be appreciated, but she says that kind of stuff maybe once per week.
3) Attactive Spouse - I have recently lost a significant amount of weight, almost 20lbs. Started off that I was trainign for the Arnold Classic 5K Pump and run so lifting and running. Recently though not eating much has accelerated weight loss. Currently 196 lbs, 21.1% body fat. As far as actually being handsome well that is in the eye of the beholder...OM kind of looks like Napolean Dynamite.
4)Family commitment - rated high on this one even by her. I love my kids and take care of them. No arguments here.
5)domestic Support - this is probably the weakest one for me, but I have taken to picking 2 projects per week to get things in order, in addtion to sharing in cooking and dishes. We have a cleaning service every other week for dusting/vacuuming, bathroom cleaning.

Removing LBs -
DJs this is my big one and she fears them greatly. I feel that I have been doing well, but need feedback to gauge accurately. WW is telling me whatever she thinks I want to hear. I verbally reaffirmed that she is safe with me yesterday to hoping she would just confess but she started crying instead when I said that to her. I just held her until she stopped crying and dropped it.

AO's - I have always been the "calm" one maybe too calm, seeming too cold and calculating. I am sure she views me as manipulative and so refer back to DJs.

SD's - My demands are really not outright demands, I seek consensus. In my efforts to convince though, I believe that DJs and manipulation are perceived. I usually make requests by saying "What do you think about ABC?"

Independent behavior - spent a lot of time on the computer when we were both in withdrawal, have cut it back to almost nil at home. I will use work laptop and bring it to where family is if i need ot work on something, but do not play games or online poker any more.

Annoying Habits - the time i used to spend on the com[uter used to annoy her. Have stopped that. She is so closed and unwilling to share that I believe there are others but they have not been identified.

Dishonesty - I was dishonest when we were dating, dropped out of college, didn't work hard...lied about that stuff to myself as well. Changed that 7 years ago and am very honest now and have been for last 7 years. My openness is often taken for smothering.

I really think that you are in a pretty good situation. I think that being caught in the act coupled with exposure will kill this A. I think your lack of admiration towards her coupled with your DJing have majorly overdrawn her love bank. This OM is feeding her admiration and she can't get enough of it. She is addicted to it, and will do whatever it takes to get it as long as she can hide it from you. Internally she feels guilty as he11, but can't stop because it feels so good that this OM is showering her with all this admiration. What she doesn't realize in the fog is that the OM is just giving her what she wants to hear in order to get in her pants. She'll figure that out once she gets through withdrawal.

What you need to do is catch her about to commit the act. Once she is caught, she can't justify the A any more. While she is in the fog she justifies her behavior as, "it feels so good, and it won't hurt my BS as long as he never finds out." Well, once she is busted you need to assure her that you still want to be with her, you will forgive her, but you two need to take precautions to protect yourself, your children, and your M from this happening again. This is where you list your boundaries: NC with OM ever again, delete OM's number and change her number, complete honesty and transparency, etc. Let her know that you are working to become a better husband and father. Make yourself a safe haven for your WW to come back to. I really think that she wants to get caught and things will work out for you. Good luck. Be prepared to deal with a lot of crap here the next few weeks. You need to be strong and be a lighthouse for your WW to come back to.

I was merely warning you about common but not likely tactics used by WW's to take control of the situation after they get busted on D-day. Unlike the movies, they RARELY end the affair and come begging for you to forgive them. Instead, they often get pissed off that YOU had the gumption to spy on them, bust them and ruin their fun fantasy relationship...then, some of them start scrambling to perserve everything they feel entitled to...like OM, the house, custody of the kids. A rare few get the idea, in desparation, to try to use the system to their advantage and file trumped up domestic violence claims to get you out of the marital home. They do this after they demand separation and you refuse to go. They know THEY don't want to leave and feel entitled to make you leave...thus they call the cops.

Good Father (a former poster herein) had a situation where his wife was constantly calling OM on the phone in the marital home. He confronted her and asked her to take it outside. He likely was a bit demanding but not physical. She called the cops and had him removed from the home right then and there in front of his daughter. He had to wait two weeks for a hearing.

A friend of mine had his wife try to beat herself up and call the cops on him. Fortunately, he had NO marks on his hands, his wife was a hysterical witch, and he was able to convince them that she was freaking out on prescription drugs. The huge baggie of assorted prescription pills in her purse certainly helped him. She was removed.

How to protect yourself???

Your doctor idea is over the top. It actually would make you appear guilty and/or paranoid to do that. I just recommend carrying a small digital recorder in your pocket and carefully/secretively tape any interaction you fear may be confrontational. Remember, there will always be a gap between the time she calls the cops and the cops arrive. If you merely get her on tape during that time block you'll likely get her on the record with statements indicating it's a bogus claim.

Finally, when a wayward plays those games it usually backfires on them. The courts are not altogether stupid. It usually becomes apparent they are manipulating the system...especially if you can prove it. Good Father ended up with full custody, my friend did too. I just want you to be aware this things do happen...not all the time.

Mr. Wondering

p.s. - Does OM make $250,000 a year??? Also, it's OK in Plan A to asses your faults and correct them...but, her affair is not your fault. The problem is inside of her and that will need addressing someday in recovery.

YOU WILL MAKE IT.

Just handed Mrs. SS07 to the PI surveillance team. It's a good thing someone mentioned mentioned that PI is cheaper than divorce lawyer because this is going to be expensive.

jmwc95, thanks for the vote of confidence, we'll see what we get from the professional surveillance. My intel indicated that she wanted to OM< today or tomorrow, we'll see what develops.

MrW, thanks for the advice on the abuse claim prevention stuff. I definitely do not want to jeopardize any custody or right to remian in the house. I'll keep you all posted.

MrW on the p.s. - I was working on the faults before I learned of the A and still am. I acknowledge that I need to create the atmosphere that she could feel safe returning to. I know that she may not, but I view this change as necessary in order to not repeat this experience, with anyone. I will be a better person to myself and those that surround me.

I have no idea what OM makes. While I am not necessarily satisfied with what I make, i feel it is a decent income.

Did you inform the PI that your goal is to prevent WW and OM from having sex, not just get it on film? How will that work?

This is a little dirty trick, but if she is the one who made the arrangements, you can cancel them if you are her husband and can provide info like a social security number. Nothing would piss them off more than to show up for their vacation only for it to be canceled. I wish I would have done that to my WW, but I didn't find MB yet.

I tend to disagree. If it's a PA it sounds like it's already been happening anyway. There is NO WAY this is the first time they hooked up. Be certain that if there was an indication that tonight or tomorrow WAS actually going to be "the night" I'd agree...but nothing disclosed thus far indicates such.

PI's only document. They are expensive but they do not want to get personally involved. In my experience and estimation you can't physically stop a wayward spouse from doing what they are dead set on doing. It's a compulsive addiction. The key is getting THEM to stop it.

Have the PI's document what they can and have your d-day. That is enough. I certainly wish I had taking the opportunities I had to STOP my wife's affair prior to one or two of their liasons...but those opportunities were missed because I failed to expose immediately after d-day (I hadn't found MB yet). That I regret but in the end those liasons are no more significant then the others that happened before I knew.

Get the evidence and have your d-day. That is enough for now. There is some MB posts about D-day that would make good reading. I don't know exactly where they are but I can summarize. Stay Calm. Talk little and listen a lot. Hesitate trying to teach the wayward and Don't tell them about MB, yet...YOU need this place until you get well into recovery.

Mr. Wondering