A few months ago she started go out with people from work. She would stay out late and then have somebody pick her up. She has never gone out like this before. Then she would go out and would not come home until the next day. She would stay at one of our businesses. I didn't like it but she said she didn't want to bother anybody to take her somewhere. Then on our 8 year anniversary she mentioned that she wanted to go to a basketball tournament. She made it sound like it was a one day thing but on Wednesday she said she would be gone the next day and wouldn't come back until Saturday. This is when it hit me. Something was wrong. I told her that this was not normal and she shouldn't go. She said it was my opinion and it was harmless. I was crushed. When she came back no kiss or anything. I don't remember much about that time I was in a fog. She agreed we should go to a marriage counselor.
We have been going for a couple months now. Things are better. We are much happier but she still goes out. It hurts. So I posted in the GD forum and an affair was suspected. I looked at computer and found nothing and then today I looked at our cell phone records. She is texting alot. I noticed that she was texting a particular number all through day and very late at night(3-4am). This is supposedly the guy that just broke up with his girlfriend a couple weeks ago and she has been helping him. She says he is an alcoholic, having a hard time, and no family around. She helped him move into a place and also went to a movie with him. So now I know something is going on now. I am in the fog again and going to try to keep it together until I have a plan.

So now that you know most of my story. What do I do?

I am 36, she is 30, and we have 4 kids under the age of 6.

Your W is having an EA at the least (it may already be a PA). She is also gaslighting you (look it up on google). It is NOT ACCEPTABLE for her to be talking (texting) another man.

Have you read the articles here? Get Surviving an Affair and read it. Then follow it. You may be early enough in the A to get a real handle on it. But you have so many red flags that even if you want to deny it, it's there.

Learn about what a protected marriage looks like. She should not be going out with other people without you. She should not have friends of the opposite sex.

Believe me, I came into this with FOUR years of being told that it was my problem, I needed to let him have his friends, he wasn't doing anything wrong, I was being to controlling...blah, blah, blah, and I BELIEVED IT. The same man that fed me that for years, now has removed any other females from his life, NEVER goes out without me, and takes EXTRAORDINARY PRECAUTIONS to protect our marriage from the chance of an A. He isn't whipped, he just woke up and realized that he wasn't honoring or protecting our M from the evils that are really out there.

READ EVERYTHING YOU CAN HERE and then DO IT.

Good luck.

I just read your other thread. She IS cheating. What you describe is an EA with the OM that just broke up with his GF.

When your W has her ENs met by another man, she is having an EA. The thing is, as you get more and more connected with the OM, it easily slips into a PA. I don't believe that people go out looking for an A, they just don't realize that it is happening before it happens.

Your W may have lots of stresses in her life, but she is gaslighting you. I have three small boys and at one point I was working full-time, running a farm alone, volunteering for the fire department, and raising them. I didn't need to go out to "find my purpose." That was something that I could do at home...something that I wanted to do WITH my spouse. She's making excuses so that she can have what she wants without consequence.

I know that it is hard to believe, but what she is doing is NOT OK. It will ruin your marriage...you already feel it. You have a gut because it helps to protect you. Listen to it. Read the Basic Concepts. I think you are at the point that a Plan A is in order, but I'm not an expert on that as my H told me about his A AFTER he had ended it.

Everyone: familyman has been posting on Emotional Needs, but the gist of his situation is right here. One thing I think he needs to hear are concrete steps on how to confront her with what he knows. I wasn't really able to give that to him, but I'm sure there are vets here who can.

I think I should try to find out more information about the affair. opinions? Problem is that I am visibly shaken with this news. I don't know if I can pull off being calm and acting like nothing has happened tonight. We have a baseball game with the boys tonight then we will go home. My BF says his wife is coming over tonight to watch a movie. BF's wife's grandmother died today and is going home tomorrow. What should I do? I have already told my BF the news. He thinks I should confront her.

Is there any way to get copies of those text messages.

I too think it's an EA, and quite likely a PA as well (overnight stays = most likely a PA). You can confront now or wait until you get more evidence that she cannot deny, but don't wait too long.

In the mean while, read up on Plan A and exposure here - those are the first tools that you'll need to use to recover your M, if you wish to recover it.

I have an appointment with MC on Thursday. Should I tell him what I have found?

I personally think the MC you've been using sounds like a dud. He didn't see anything wrong with these overnighters and "dates", right?

On the other hand, it might be a good idea to see what he has to say. Your appointment on Thursday is for both of you, right? Can you call him between appointments? Can you call him today?

I caution you, though - don't let him try to minimize this. It seems to me that his judgement isn't the greatest to start with, but in something like this you ought to trust your gut. You know what you found, you know what's been going on. As hicktown said, it is likely your wife has been "gaslighting" you - trying to make you think the problem was your jealousy, not her nights out with the guys. Don't go back to that...

We do not go to counseling together. Her appointment is tomorrow and mine is Thursday. I have left him VM to call me asap.

OK, good idea. He is familiar with your situation, so he SHOULD have something constructive to say about it - but don't let him blow this off.

While you are waiting for more responses, I noticed a thread at the top of the page here at JFO called "WAT's Quick Start Guidelines for Betrayed Spouses." You might want to check that out. One thing you'll find out is that affairs are distressingly similar to each other. It's almost like there is a script that Wayward Spouses follow.

Did you say your BF's wife is coming over to your place to watch a movie tonight? If they could come over, that might provide an emotional buffer for you, to help you keep it together for right now.

I have read the guidelines a couple times. I don't think the BF is coming but his wife is. I hope it's not a chick flick they are watching.

Is your best friend's wife a friend of your wife?

Did your friend tell her what you told him?

If she knew about an affair, do you think she would encourage your wife to stop cheating?

I really think that you need to try to obtain more information. If you hit her up now, she will deny an A and they may just go further underground. Have you considered using *67 and calling him? Read KLD's thread in General Questions. She was extremely restrained while getting proof positive. Can you afford to call the Harleys? FWH and I wasted alot of time on local conselors before I started MB principles. We may yet call them if we hit any other road blocks. Their concepts work. It only makes sense to councel with them if you can?
I am sorry that you find yourself here. It is sad for all of us.
Say

I agree that you need to have hard evidence to put in front of her when you expose. She needs to know that without a doubt, YOU KNOW. She has already shown you that she is very willing and capable of lying about this situation.

If you're not sure you can keep it restrained until you have proof, maybe you can find a way to excuse yourself from her presence for a bit...tell her you're not feeling well and spend the evening in your room. Avoid big discussions with her until you feel like you can show her what you know. Do you have any family? Could you take a trip away for a couple of days? And then plan on being available to physically check up on her.

When she goes out and stays overnight, is there any way for you to have someone come over to your house so that you can go check up on her? You could go to her business and see if she's really there, and really there alone. You can check on her whereabouts by going there.

Don't rely on texts and phone conversations...my FWH told me that I called many times while he was with OW and he just talked his way through it without my ever knowing she was there. Your W is lying and she can do it adeptly. You have to CATCH her in the lie to be able to confront her. It doesn't seem fair, but that's probably the only way to get her to own up to it.

You know that the texts are with this OM. Is he the only one you suspect she is with? Where are you when she is texting at night? If you are sleeping, can you make an effort to be awake with her when she is so that she cannot text him without your knowing? Then if he texts her, you can tell her to go ahead and text him back...no big deal if it's only friendly advice...and see what she does. Also, request to see the texts if they are innocent. Tell her it would put you more at ease to know that they're just friends. She'll be mad about the request, but if she refuses, it's just another red flag that she is having an A. You should never be doing something that you wouldn't want your spouse to see...EVER.

Do you have any mutual friends? I used a mutual friend (OW and mine) to find out what was going on. Mostly I double-checked where H said he was going and then what OW said she was doing. When they were both unaccounted for, I went looking.

Have you thought about following your W? Or have a friend follow her? I know it stinks, but it is one way to know where she is and what she is doing. No matter what she will be angry with you...that's part of gas-lighting.

Start writing EVERYTHING down. Keep a journal of where she says she is and when she goes places. Write down any time that you don't think she's telling the truth. Then double check it.

This will be excellent advice for the upcoming battle you are going to be engaging in. You will want to document every time she goes on an overnight trip, leaving you with the kids.

Sad to say, there may come a day when you'll need this as evidence in court, to determine child custody placement. Let's hope it never gets that far, but better safe than sorry.

You can get one of those hard-bound "Logbook" or "Record Book" at Staples - you know, the kind bound like a book with blank pages. Keep a log, in chronological order, and don't tear any pages out. It'll be admissable in court as contemporaneous evidence.

If there's any way you can continue to "act normal" while you're gathering data, definitely do that. Phone records were not enough for me to confront my FWH with. He found a reasonable lie for every question I asked him. He made out like I was not trusting and way off base - he lied like a rug about everything regarding the OW. That's what waywards do - they lie for many reasons.

Make copies of every phone bill with your info. Keep a log of her comings and goings. This is important because there's no way you'll remember what she's done and where she's been if you don't document it. I kept a log and then matched it to the phone records. It all fell together then.

I hired a PI because I knew there's no way I could nail him without hard cold video proof. When I did confront him, I had it all lined out. I didn't tell him how I knew everything. I just told him that I knew and that he should stop lying to me about his affair. In my case, I knew who the likely OW was so that made it a little easier to get info. I did a background check on her and found out some remarkable and quite unsavory things about her. I shared some of this with him. He finally admitted it all to me.

I think you're much better off to have all the details you can get in your back pocket. You don't know what you'll need, but when you confront her you won't be asking questions you'll be telling her. This gives her no opportunity to make something up and wiggle out.

Waiting to get the info is extremely difficult. I went on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs during the time I was gathering data and continued until about 6 weeks after I confronted him. There was about 5 weeks between the time I found out for sure and when I confronted him. It was an unspeakably difficult time for me, but I pulled it off by remembering my goal - to get all the info I could get to protect myself should I need to and to confront him with facts he couldn't lie about. My goal was to save my M and stop his A, but I wanted to also prepare myself for D if that's where it went.

I put all my data in a safe deposit box. I recorded some of our conversations and those recordings are in the box. I set up a secret email account to communicate with my PI and to get the background checks I ordered online. I got his bank records and proof that he was paying some of her bills. Get as much info as you can. It will help you in the long run if you can stand the gap in time while you are waiting for confrontation.

Not everyone can do it the way I did. One of the things that happened was that I was very, very emotional after about a week after confrontation. I think holding it all in for so long took a toll on me. I still wouldn't change it, though, because I got his attention big time. He had one relapse and lied about it. Since then, he's maintaining NC and we are in the first stages of recovery.

KLD is the poster child for handling an affair properly. I urge you to visit her thread over on General Questions to see how well she handled everything and learn from it.

Family Man... this is my post to you over on the GD board...
just wanted to post it in 2 places...

FamilyMan...

I haven't even got to the end of the 1st page of the thread, but I can tell you the red flags are waving.... and I am the FWW.

Your wife is following in my footsteps. If it hasn't turned physical it will if you don't stop her.

My job when we got married was in a family setting. Then I became a student & started bartending. Being a bartender is NOT a good job for a married person. You gotta flirt like crazy to upsell ... and the more flirting, the better the tips. Mix that with 90% of the work place being single & young and it makes you feel like you missed out on something.
Hubby & I married when I was 22. I had convinced myself that we were too young & I missed out on dating. The fun, carefree lifestyle that my coworkers had seemed very inticing... much more exciting & fun than being a wife & sharing a mortgage & bills.

My story is long... You'll have to search my user name for my original post. I don't know how to paste my story into a signature. I pop on here from time to time to read, hoping I'll have some kind of advice for WSs or BSs. Sometimes I do keep my distance b/c of my status as the wayward spouse.

I pray that if she's having an PA that it physically makes her ill until she realizes the sin she's committing.

I've got to finish reading the thread now... I just had to chime in early.

We are in recovery... 16 months now....

Oneflesh

familyman,

Has your counselor gotten back to you?

familyman,

Check back at your original thread - I asked another veteran poster to take a look, and he had a reply for you.