The key to saving your marriage is getting NC w/ the OM. Tell her you know the reason she wants a D is because she's having an affair, and you will fight for your marriage and against this divorce. If she refuses to have NC with the other man (change her job), you need to expose her to the consequences of her affair. This means exposing her infidelity to her employer, her priest or pastor, her family and friends, OM's family and friends, and even your children if they are over the age of around 10. Anyone in a position to pressure her to end the affair or at least look at her in a judgemental way. I think just as big a key for ending the affair is making life difficult for the OM and chasing him off. Sure, your WW will be angry at first, but your marriage will be saved if you can get her to have NC with OM. Right now she is living in a fantasy world w/ OM, and you need to give her a harsh dose of reality. She doesn't want to experience the consequences of her affair. That is why she lied about it. Once she experiences the consequences, she may decide (not right a way, after several months of turmoil) that the grass isn't greener, and then maybe willing to work on the marriage again.

This is textbook on how to deal with a WW. Just a couple of other things. What state do you live in? Certain states are better for the man if it does come to divorce. How supportive of you are her parents? How old are your kids?

Once you tell her you know, you need to move back into the marital bed. Don't talk divorce. Tell her that you will fight to keep your family together and won't discuss divorce. If it comes to that you will let your lawyer fight it all the way.

Also, read everything you can on this site about meeting emotional needs and avoiding lovebusters. Figure out what ENs you weren't meeting (conversation), how you were lovebusting, and how you can improve. Also, don't get overly needy or beg or plead in front of her. Project a calm, positive, upbeat attitude. Don't get sucked into arguments.

Hang onto your seat, it's going to be a bumpy ride for at least the next two years.

Could you elaborate on two (2). How? Pardon, but what is gaslighting? More specific suggestions and steps.

What is "NC w/ the OM"? The abbreviations in these posts confuse me. Is there a commonly known decoder somewhere?

I agree. This is 100% textbook on how to handle a WW. She's going to kick and scream and try to hurt you for not letting her get what she wants. She's going to try and manipulate you. She's not the woman you married anymore. In her mind, she is with the OM and you are trying to break them up. She will do anything (she'll do immoral things too because she already stooped to cheating) to protect her affair. It's going to be he11 for a while, but don't let her paralyze you into inaction with fear. That's what she will try to do.

Yes, it's a sticky post on the "Just found out forum."

NO CONTACT WITH THE OTHER MAN!

That is your goal. Only then will you be able to work on your marriage again. You need to essentially break them up and get him completely out of the picture for several months before she will even think about working on the marriage again.

I think our decoder ring is located on the Just Found Out board.

NC - No Contact
OM - Other Man

Have you read any of Bob's stuff?

Do you need me to go back and provide links? I can if it'll make it easier on you.

I live in Illinois which as I understand it favors a woman in cases of divorce and custody rights regardless of adultery. Info to the contrary would be welcome.

Her parents are deceased and her family is scattered/detached. My family is supportive of us and our family actively and my parents get our kids to school after she and I leave for work, for the sake of the kids. They're devasted by her declaration that she wants to leave the marriage. Kids are 11 (boy), 10 (girl) and 6 (boy). We're both devoted to them and have kept them out of the info loop on the marriage problems so far except for the weirdness and her hateful screaming in two empassioned conflicts.

I can't find Bob's stuff (BobPure).? Search doesn't seam to be working. Can you provide a link?

Pick a day. And expose to everyone.

Confront OM if you can.
Tell him you know he is having an affair with your wife. Tell him you have 3 small children and love your wife (this will contradict what she has been telling him, and create chaos in their fantasy....) Tell him to leave your family alone.

Tell your wife's parents, and ask them for their support in saving their grandchildrens family.

Tell your own family and ask for their prayers and support.

Tell your children in age-appropriate ways.

Expose to the employer. Especially if they are using company time and resources. Especially if there is a supervisory aspect to this -- they are opening themselves up to a sexual harassment charge if they do nothing.

Confront your wife. Simply tell her that you know.
Protect your sources. Keep copies of your proof HIDDEN -- outside of your house.


There is a great thread on gaslighting. I'll try to see if I can find it.

By definition: it is a form of pyschological abuse. Its a method of making you doubt yourself by shifting blame.

Z,

You are at a very, very sensitive time in the situation and could blow it if you don't handle it correctly.

Here's a few things which could make it harder for you:

If you expose right now without more proof, then you risk pushing her underground more and she will be much better about covering your tracks.

You can start with, "I know about OM (whatever his name is)."

She'll deny.

You can say that you know about the hotel room. That you know they talk regularly.

I'd gather more evidence to cement this. You're not done doing that.

Go through her purse, her car, her clothes. Look for receipts. Put a keylogger on your computer. There are some free ones out there and we can help you with installation. You will need to setup your anti-virus and anti-spy ware up to bypass it.

This will let you see what web sites or email accounts she's been using to communicate with him.

Hire a PI if you can afford it. It's usually a $2K retainer. They do this all the time.

If you expose without further proof you will make it harder to keep tabs on what she's doing and how and when she's cheating.

Here's a few more things to keep in mind:

You will not lose custody just because you are a man. There has been a shift in the court systems in the last few years and father's are treated more fairly in court. You just have to be careful in how you approach the process because what works for women in custody situations doesn't work for men.

Start keeping a log about the time you spend with the kids.

You haven't been told anything most of us here haven't heard. I heard the same lines you have, especially the "it wasn't cheating because I had already decided the marriage was over".

And the final word of caution:

A lot of counselors out there have no experience with infidelity or give all the wrong advice. The one I went to told me to do everything my ex wanted me to do. I followed the advice and ended up with nothing, unemployed, separated from my kids, broke, and divorced.

The advice on how to win your W back is contradictory and goes against what you would think works. It's like dealing with an addict. They like their drugs and gets very mad if you try to take them from him or her, but you know you need to for their sake. You will have to bear the brunt of the storm of her reaction to you standing up, being strong, being a man, and exposing the affair.

I have much hope for you because you don't sound like you're the kind of man that many of us were: weepy, whiny, crying, doormats.

This is good. Being strong will get you respect. Being weak will get you hosed badly.

Do not expose yet! Get more evidence so that it is undeniable.

Then come here and we'll advise you on D-day.

Talk to the Harley's if you can afford it.

Illinois is one of the very few states that still has an alienation of affection law!

You can sue the OM....or at the very least threaten to do so.
And her employer may be a party to the suit if they do nothing to separate them.

Get a free consultation with a lawyer to discuss.

Amen! Yes, sue the OM with alienation of affection. It will give him a big "Oh sh*t" to send him hiding into corners.

"Few questions for you:
Is this out of character for her?
Has he ever been a cheater before?
How old are your children?
Is she religous?


Her current character is extremely out of character from anything I/we've ever witnessed before. Yes, she was a troubled youth and young lady when we first met in college. Her father was 30 years older than her mother and died when she was two when he was making love to another woman during an affair. Her mother raised her and her sisters through extended depression. My wife has been on her own/autonomous most of her life until marriage. She was raped when she was 14. She had earlier abusers by family that hurt her deeply. In colleage she was troubled when I first met her. She went through healing counseling, became a strong, beautiful woman who wanted better and prayed for a loving, faithful husband, and when asked to get more specific from who she knew, prayed for me. When she called to ask me out after college I was a little hesitant as I knew her darker side, but when I learned about where it had come from and that her counseling transformed her evidently, I couldn't help but fall for her. 1 1/2 years later I proposed and we were married beautifully 7 months later. It was a blessed and holy celebration for us. NOW, she says she feels like her old self again that she's been suppressing for years being submissive, dutiful and unhappy and can't live like that anymore. I don't want her to - I want an assertive and happy partner in this relationship and didn't know she had gone underground with these feelings for many years now (the early years seemed very happy for us both, but after our miscarriage around 7 years ago we both struggled with depression and separation and were living detached emotionally.

She has never cheated before.

Kids are 11, 10 and 6.

I am Catholic. She converted to Catholicsm sacramentally the weekend before we got married as she wanted to raise our children in a common faith and knew I was devoutly Catholic. Her mom was Lutheran, but didn't practice, and she spent some time as a Southern Baptist. She espouses faith in Jesus and God, but seems uncomfortable accepting all Catholic teaching, especially now when it doesn't suit what she wants and is avoiding our faith and Christian values lately.

Zeph,

Do some research on the effects of childhood sexual abuse on women. The results will open your eyes.

There's a few things to be careful about. If this does proceed to divorce, then you are at very high risk of false allegations of abuse with your own children because of her past. Be aware of it.

My ex was a good and loving wife as well when we were married. She was attentive to me when things were good and we went out on weekly dates together. Things seemed ok and I had no reason to believe she would go off the deep end when she did.

I learned some things after our D, did the research, and suddenly a lot of things made sense.

Do the research. It is eye opening.

There are self esteem problems with your WW. I'm sure there is a need to have a man in her life at all times to validate her feelings about herself.

I'm no pro, but I've been in your shoes.

Your W needs help.

Is she normally very flirtateous with other men? Does she have bad relationships with other women or have a hard time making female friends? Does she prefer having male friends?

Does she have frequent medical problems? Depression? Panic or anxiety attacks?

Get more evidence and prepare to confront.

Thanks for the background...it helps.

So, based on her religous background -- I don't think you will have much success approaching her from the commandments or biblical "wrongness" of what she is doing. Sometimes the WW is deeply affected by offending God.

If there is one piece of advice I can give you -- PLEASE DON'T BUY INTO WHAT SHE IS SAYING. She is re-writing history to make herself feel better about her wrongdoing. Somehow if you were a bad/neglectful/controlling husband then its OK to cheat on you. (yeah right....)

Let her spew whatever she wants -- but don't accept it as truth.
Don't agree with her revisions. You were there. You know that nothing you did justifies her cheating.

What happened was, the two of you were emotionally detached and not meeting each others needs. When she started her new job, she started having her needs met by this new group of people -- especially OM. So now she is in a self-fulfilling prophecy.
She is CREATING the bad marriage that makes it OK for her to leave.

When you are ready to expose -- you will need to include your children. Age appropriate. Obviously you are not going to tell them that mommy is screwing OM. It will be something more like "when you are married you promise to only love your husband/wife....mommy is not doing that....she has a boyfriend"
Or something to that effect....

I haven't gotten an attorney yet as I've been avoiding the expense of the retainer and leaving next steps to her while we're both in marital counseling. Do I need an attorney to proceed with the confrontation of the affair? Do I need an attorney to write to her employer (or do I call or meet with their HR department)? Do I need an attorney to threaten alienation of affection claim against the OM (I have both a phone number and an email address for him)? Or do I have the right to take these steps on my own? Will these actions jeopardize my case? Do you have any templates for wording of what to say?

How much proof to I need? I have her cell phone/text message history with a steady pattern of calls/messages to his number. Do I need to catch them in a physical act? What if she says they're just friends? She called his number several times just last night. Do I need a GPS tracker on the car to track her whereabouts through the week and weekend when she goes out?

Because the phones are primarily in her name (I am on the account for my cell too) I'm concerned that if I let her know what I know, she'll change the password access codes on the phone accounts and then I won't be able to track her calls/texts activity. I suppose I could have them subpoena's later if it was relavant to a divorce case? Anyone know how I can get the actual text of those texts? I can't get them on the web site, do they have to be subpeona'd or are they lost in cyberspace?

I want this to stop and think I need to confront her with the truth as I know it and negotiate NC w/ OM, but want to have my ducks in a row before I do that.

And everyone says don't tell/harm the kids, but I saw one note that says to tell everyone friends/family and maybe even older kids. Is this adviseable or harmful to them?

The other advice is to keep control of your emotions.

Be methodical.
Have a plan.
Try not to react impulsively or emotionally.

You may want to get into your physician to get on an anti-depressent since you have that history. It will help you keep on an even keel.

You know you need more evidence -- so don't tip your hand or reveal your sources during any confrontation!
Keep your evidence somewhere that your wife can never reach and not destroy. (maybe a family member could hold it for you?)

Today your task is to do more research.

Find out what you can about OM. Married? Girlfriend?
Family?

Check out the Spying 101 thread. It will give you more ideas on how you can discover the whole truth. GPS...keyloggers....Sim card readers...

If I were you I would not confront yet.

Because that is exactly what Gaslighting is. You will ask about the calls. She will say they are just friends. She will tell you that you are paranoid. She will get angry at the accusation.
She will make you doubt your judgement.

I think you have more spying to do.

Does she ever leave her phone unattended? Because you can buy a Sim card reader that will give you the exact text of the text messages. But you have to get to her phone and be able to take out the sim card.

There was also a really interesting software that you could buy that actually let you intercept and listen in on phone calls and copied you on text messages -- but I can't remember the name of it!

Regarding your kids.

The affair is what is destructive to your kids.
The fact that their family is in jeapardy because of it.

They probably already know and fear that something is wrong.
Telling them the TRUTH will help them.

They will know this is not their fault.
They will know that is not OK.
You will reaffirm their moral judgement and character.

BY THE WAY...THANK YOU to all for your time, interest and guidance at this difficult time. My #1 priority in life is to mend this marriage if I at all can, but I've tried what I know how and it hasn't been working, so I'm working with the marriage counselor, getting expert advise through some of the best books on marriages, relationships and communications that I can get, and taking into consideration the wisdom of people like yourselves who have lived through these pains and struggles themselves. Unfortunately I hear them from many who have ended theirs in D. It would be helpful for me to hear encouragement and testimonials from those who repaired and saved their marriages following such instances. Are there any WW's out there or men who have saved their marriages and now have a better marriage than before this all happened becaused they learned how to heal, better communicate and meet emotional needs that weren't being met previously? Success stories please!