I've been with my wife for 14-years and we're coming up on our 9th anniversary this year. We have a total of five children, four of our own and one of hers from before we were together. We've always had our problems and just before we got married my wife met someone and had a short relationship with him but ended it because of what we had together.

My wife is a stay at home mom and spends a lot of time on the computer during the day to keep herself occupied. Recently we've been having a lot of problems and fight a lot due to the stress of the kids and all of their activities. Last week my wife really started acting strange which cause me to start to wonder and then on Tuesday she told me that she doesn't love me anymore and wants to leave. After a lot of talking between us she admitted to me that this guy she was briefly with 9 years ago had found her on MySpace and were talking for a few days before he went out of town. Today he came back in town and sent her a message that I read and contained several messages that they had before he left which said that they were panning to become intimate when he returned.

I love my wife with all of my heart and want to work things out but that can't happen if she does this. There are a lot of factors as to why I think she feels the way she does, one major one is that she was out last June with her friends dancing and they all had too much to drink and being the trusting person that she is allowed two guys that her friends met drive her home. Needless to say, they raped her. She's never delt with the pain in any formal way, she just bottles it up inside trying to forget about it and now she says she feels like she doesn't have control of her life and I'm afraid that this affair that she's having is in some way giving her that feeling of control.

Something is going to happen with them over the next few days and I need some advice on how to deal with it. I know if I confront her that she WILL go out and sleep with this guy just to feel like I'm not trying to control her. I've been trying to suggest ways that we can work out our differences and she seem's unwilling to do any of them.

I don't want her to go and do something that she is going to regret because I know that we can work on and fix our marriage.

Please Help!!!

One other thing, I can get into contact with this guy. Should I contact him and try to talk to him about it and explain that she has a family with me and needs to try and give it a chance with us before doing something that she can't take back?

You cannot control your wife's actions...no matter what you WANT. If she decides to cheat, you can only control your reaction.

With that said, I am so sorry that you find yourself here...but this is a good place to be. I am not a vet, but there are many here who can help.

Have you read the Basic Concepts?

Has your W gone to IC for the rape? She needs to deal with it and she cannot do that on her own. If you can convince her to see a counselor, even by herself, before she makes any decisions...maybe the counselor can help her to belay any life-changing actions. I haven't talked with Dr. Harley, but he would certainly be able to help.

Keep asking until you get help. The people here are amazing.

Thank you for the response. I'm coming to realize that I can't control what she does and can only try and better myself and hope that she realizes what she's doing. I've been reading through this site for a day or so now and it's really helping me cope with all of this.

My wife refuses to see a counselor about her rape because she says that she just wants to forget about it. I know that I can't understand what she's going through completely but I feel that I know that I have to let her deal with it on her own terms without trying to be forceful about it which would only bring out deeper, darker feeling towards me pushing her further away.

To give more of an idea of our situation up to this point, we've always had our differences but I always thought that they were just common things among married couples. I wish that I had found this website years ago and knew the simple things that I've come across over the last few days.

I realize now that I haven't been the husband that my wife has needed or wanted. I have always felt that taking care of our household financially and helping my wife take care of the kids and devoting all of our free time to their activities and well being was what a father should do. Well, that's the problem, I've been treating my wife like she is one of the children that need taken care of instead of loving her and showing her the affection that she needs and so longs for which she is now going back to the last place that she had it with this other man.

In my heart, I know that she still loves me even though she says that she doesn't. I guess it's time for me to start taking care of myself and my family in ways that weren't apparent to me before.

After reading the Basic Concepts on the Marriage Builders website it was like a light going off in my head. I finally understood what my wife has been talking about all these years and now it's time to make those changes in myself so that we can begin to repair our wounds and try to work past through this. There's a lot about me that my wife doesn't know because I've never had the understanding of how to express myself in a way that would make her feel connected to me.

There is still a lot of things that I need to learn but I at least feel that I am now pointed in the right direction and am committed to helping myself which will in turn hopefully help my wife as well. The most important thing in life is your family and I would like to keep mine in tact and let us all help each other grow to be better, happier people.

Tough spot. I was there. Wife was sexually abused as child and also raped as a teen.

She needs to deal with the rape in counseling.

I don't have any advice on how to get her to do that.

With the limited information given...I would confront the man, very hard. It sounds like no matter what you do she will make up her own mind.

Would leaving her abruptly shock any sense into her?

I don't think leaving abruptly would do anything at this point since all of these feeling have just surfaced. I think it may actually do more damage than good. Plus, we have five children - four of which are mine, that I need to consider. Me leaving the house in my opinion is the wrong thing to do. My thoughts at this moment are that if she indeed becomes sexually involved with this OM then I may ask her to leave but that will be fought back with a lot of resistance since she is a stay at home mother without any where to go, so I'm sure it would just drive her to go and stay with the OM which I don't want.

Have you read up on Plan A? You need to go into full-blown Plan A behavior immediately. That means eliminating all LBs and trying to meet her ENs especially the ones the OM may be meeting. You've already mentioned some good stuff - you recognize that you've been providing FS and FC but you think she craves affection and UA.

But you have to make sure all LBs are eliminated first.

There's a lot more to Plan A also. Others can give better details. I don't know, it might involve confronting the OM, especially since you may be able to get to him before too much has happened. If you do, try to remain calm. Emotions have gotten the better of the best. You want to come off as the reasonable one. You have every right to be angry. Just don't do anything counterproductive, KWIM? I hope someone else will comment on whether or not to confront, and how.

Do you have family you could talk to, who may be able to influence her?

By all means, confront this man - and do it rationally, not emotionally, like jayne said. Take the high road. If he's married, confront his wife, too. Send her the emails. Stop it before it gets any further. Your wife will be mad, but they always are, when the betrayed spouse starts fighting to save the marriage.

I'm not familiar with Plan A. Can you please direct me to this information? It would be greatly appreciated. I just checked our cell phone records and she has spoken to him once already today for about 4-minutes right before she called me.

I think the changes that I've tried to make over the last few days are starting to affect her but not enough that she's going to turn away from this affair just yet. We made very passionate love the night that she told me all of this and said to me that she wouldn't sleep with anyone else but I have a feeling that because she had already had a physical relationship with this OM 9-years ago that she's easily being swept back in to the point where they left the relationship.

Any help in pointing me to Plan A would help me out. I need to start putting this in to action immediately. I surprised her this morning with roses in her car when she went out and when we talked a little while ago she commented on them saying that they were beautiful. I know that if she can wait on starting a physical relationship until we've given working things out a try we have a much greater chance at success.

I would like to confront him but I think it will surely push my wife to the point of no return. In an email that he sent her that I found he said that she was the last woman that he had been with and that was 9-years ago so I don't think that he's going to be willing to let her go easily.

You're not confronting him to get him to stop, although that would be great. You're doing it to let him know that you are going to fight for your marriage; is he up for it?

And if you read the threads here, every single betrayed spouse says the same thing - I CAN'T expose, it would make my spouse mad! It would MAKE him/her leave me. I have to keep her happy!

Plan A is making yourself the best possible option. BUT. It doesn't mean to be a patsy. It doesn't mean to condone the affair. The first step in getting your marriage back is to expose the affair so that it's no fun any more. If she gets to keep texting him and seeing him and calling him without anyone knowing, why should she even look at you?

Sure she may get mad and leave. They all do something like that when you expose. But once the addiction is cut off, they start to come back to their senses. And often thank you eventually for fighting for them while they were in the fog and getting mad at you for interfering.

I'm sorry, but you better stop making excuses and start taking some action. You have a (closing) window of opportunity to stop this before it restarts ... and you're worrying about how invested the OM is in this situation. HELL, SHE'S YOUR WIFE and you think he has some kind of "rights".

Seriously, this guy thinks its believable that he is single and hasn't slept with anyone else in 9 years ... yeah right. He's PLAYING your WW and she's taking it hook, line and sinker.

Confront HIM, call him on his BS ... show your WW that you will not stand for being humiliated by the likes of this liar.

You can start Plan A ... it won't hurt, but if that's all you're relying on, then Plan A will lead you straight to divorce court unless you STOP THIS NOW!!!

If you think confronting him will push her away then, by all means avoid it.

However, I disagree with confronting him without emotion. I would certainly not confront him in some namby-pamby way. If your wifes hears that you confronted him would she rather hear you reasoned with him or defended your marriage from an outside attack? Is she worth fighting for?

Women marry men.

I'm only telling you what I would do. I'm sure many here disagree.

If you have the chance to prevent it from going physical, I say you do whatever you can barring years in prison to do so. "Almost" a physical affair is way way better than the reality of a physical affair. Your W, she might be mad about you interfering in this, but if the alternative is to have her mad at you for interfering in an ongoing physical affair, then the choice is a no-brainer. I would definitely contact this man, and let him know on no uncertain terms that he needs to disappear from your W's life. It may not work, but it may make him pause and give you some time to get through to your W.

For her, its plan A. For him, its plan "whatever it takes" to get the message across. I'd take the power cord to the computer too, while you're at it.

I REALLY like your style ... nice touch on the power cord!!!

Thanks MyRev, I'm right there with ya on this one.

I've spent the last 15 minutes thinking about what I would have paid to have been able to go back pre-A and been able to have prevented it.

Knowing then what I know now, I would have paid quite dearly for that opportunity.

I hear what you're saying and I know that I need to confront the OM but I'm going to wait out the weekend and see what comes of it I think. We have plans tonight to go out and do some shopping for our kids and tomorrow night we're all going out for her birthday so I know she won't have a chance to see him over the next few days at least.

Did your W report the rape to the police?

Couple other Q's: how long has she been chatting with this guy? How long have you felt the M to be strained? You said you have been fighting "recently". I would say that the timing of the two things is almost certainly intertwined.

Your W is having an Emotional Affair with this man and is planning on taking it physical. You need to understand the concepts of the Plan A. While you delay any confrontation with OM, you need to keep close tabs on your WW's activity. I would suggest a keylogger on the computer and a close perusal of cell phone records (and think right after any exposure or confrontation you need to disable the computer if it is her primary method of communication).

Find out what you can about OM. There are searches you can use on the internet that will tell you quite a bit. Its quite possible that he's married, which opens up a whole new avenue of exposure that is valuable enough to be well worth verifying.

When I said to be the reasonable one I didn't mean be "namby-pamby". There is great strength in controlling your emotions. There is weakness in being ruled by your emotions.

I didn't say don't *have* emotions. But *you* be strong, be in control. Very manly and mature IMHO.

You asked for more info about Plan A:
What are Plan A and Plan B?

Also read this thread:
Plan C is NOT a Plan!

I forgot this one:
The Carrot and the Stick of Plan A

This OM has been back in her life only for a week or so. He contacted her on 4/30 and they spoke back and forth between mostly email until 5/2 when he went on vacation for a week and just returned last night. Between 4/30 and 5/2 she spoke on the phone to him two times once for 15-minutes and once again for only 4-minutes (most likely because I was coming into the room or something). I am keeping close tabs on her at the moment. I'm a computer programmer so there's not a lot that she can hide from me on the computer even though she thinks there is.

We've had a wonderful time together over the last few days since she told me she didn't love me anymore and wanted me to move out four days ago and it really felt to me like we were starting to connect in some way, but tonight when we got home I could tell that she was looking to stir up some trouble and she did. She basically poked and prodded until I brought up the OM and then she went on the defensive and went back to the "I don't think I can ever love you again, no matter what you do", and that I'm trying to control her and tell her what to do and am forcing her to stay in the marriage.

Her main point that she's trying to stress with me is that she can't imagine getting back to the way she felt about me when we were first married and that she needs to get into a relationship where she feels love. Can anyone please tell me if this is a standard sort of response for a spouse who's in an emotional relationship with another man that's looking to take it further?

I'm starting to get myself ready for when this relationship goes to the next level and I have proof of it so that I can tell her that I'd like her to move out. At this point she wants me to be the one to move out so that she can carry on her relationship and not have to be looking over her shoulder but yet still live in the house that we bought for "our" family.

I asked her tonight, not directly, but being kind about it to end the relationship with the OM until we've worked through things and the response I got was, "So I should tell him to "F" off and to wait to see if it works out with you so that when it doesn't I can just go back to him and try to see if we have something." She acted like I was being selfish to ask that she be true the the wedding vowels that we both took almost 9-years ago. She's dead set on continuing this relationship and I know that he is too by some of the emails that I was able to get a hold of.

I'm at the point now that I'm going to just let her go and do what she wants with the hope of someday that she'll realize what she did was wrong and that she's missing out on what she really wanted, a family and husband that loved her.