I have a similar problem of whether or not to tell my wife's companion's wife.

I found on tuesday that my wife is having an affair with a co-worker. I confronted her and she admitted to the affair, but said that they haven't had sex, which I believe based on all of the emails i read between them. Even though they haven't been intimate yet, there was much discussion on email about planning a time to spend the night together, so as far as i am concerned, the deed is already done. My wife is in a post-doctoral research residency and had put many years into a career that is extremelyimportant to her. The person she is having an affair with is on the staff at the university and is sort-of her boss for certain aspects of her job. Telling this guy's wife, and possibly HR would be an almost certain end to her career at this university. This is something that I am pretty certain she would never forgive me for. Because the size of the work group at the university, it would be impossible for both of them to remain employed and not have contact. Changing universities would mean re-starting years of work that got her to where she is.

My wife has promised to stop all contact with this guy, but phone records and email show otherwise. They have discussed how to go forward and one of the options is to stop contact and focus on their marriages. Another option is to focus on the marriages while still remaining friends.

I don't see a way of contacting the spouse and HR that will not completely end my marriage. Would it be best to contact my mother-in-law or one of her sisters first? We've been married for only 3 months at this point, but have been together for 7

please help

Well exposure MAY possibly (unlikely) end your marriage but an ongoing affair will DEFINITELY end it.

What do you choose?

Well she said the above and then went ahead and continued contact!!! His wife now needs to know at least!!! You need to know what kind of marriage they have!! They both could be playing the waiting game until your wife is done with her school then poof off they both go!!! Is this just a booty call for him or more?

alarrson8

Your WW was confronted and she has shown you that she will not go NC with the OM.

If you want a shot at saving your marriage you have to try to make it to hard for her to continue her affair.

This is where exposure comes in. For exposure to be effective it must be done without warning the WW or the OM. It must me done all at once. Get your contact info lined up then expose.

Send emails and letter to the university president, Human Resources, and the university board members. Then call your WW's parent's and her siblings. The call the OMW.

So if she has to go to another university is not your problem. There are costs associated with having an affair. WW danced now she pays the band.

To do nothing and let fear make you take no action she will definitely be doing the OM and your marriage will most likely no recover.

WW's act angry once their affair is exposed. Standard WW response
is to say they were going to end the affair and now their not and other such nonsense. Just ignore their rants.

Thanks everyone for your responses, much appreciated.

This weekend I am going to try to get her to sit down and write the NC letter to the OM. From the emails, they seem to be on the verge of coming to this conclusion on their own, and maybe this will be the final push to convince her that NC is the best way. I know I am in denial about this, but I can't yet bring myself to expose yet.

In addition to the NC letter, should I demand that she switch universities? This would require moving to a new state for her field and would force me to find a new job too. I am willing to change jobs for this, but I think it will be impossible to convince her of this. She is the type that is overconfident about things she can handle. She'll tell me, and honestly feel in her heart that she can pull herself through this on her own without moving away from the OM. This is why I am afraid of trying to force her to leave the university.

Thanks again for all the responses, this site is a great resource

3 months?? Man, I thought MY wife was bad, but she at least lasted 6 months after marriage before cheating on me.

Please, read the stories plastered all over this board. Your wife's affair will NOT end while she remains in any contact with her affair partner. She may claim that she will recommit to the marriage (can I even use that word if she didn't commit in the first place?), but she will get drawn back into the affair. Testaments to that fact are EVERYWHERE here.

The way I see it, your marriage is going to follow one of two paths.

1) You don't expose to OM's wife and the school out of fear of your wife's anger. She learns to hide affair better, your marriage circles the drain for a few more months, and then she leaves.

2) You do expose the affair to OM's wife and the school. Your wife absolutely freaks out on you, but you at least have a chance of ending the affair and igniting the slim possibility that your wife will return to you.


On a personal note, the first 2 years of marriage are supposed to be the honeymoon period. Neither of you should really be able to do much wrong in each other's eyes. The fact that she cheated on you before the ink was even dry on the marriage certificate indicates a serious character flaw that yields a very, very low chance of success for your marriage. I'm sorry to be harsh, but if you try and think objectively here, I think you will find that you will be much better off letting go of her and finding someone worthy of the term "wife".

I say all this from very personal experience.

Edit: If you want to try and recover your marriage though, remember one critical fact. Women respect strong men. If you let her stay at this university, handle this on your own, effectively cutting you out of the recovery process, she will lose respect for you. Its unfair, but its true. You need to set clear boundaries of what is acceptable in your marriage and you need to enforce them.

Well said Andrew.

I know I hesitated to expose back in the day. It just seems mean and unnecessary. She'll get mad and men aren't supposed to anger their wives intentionally (especially because we do it unintentionally so well at times...who in their right mind would INTENTIONALLY set off a woman...i.e. - CONFLICT AVOIDANCE ISSUE)

What does be a man mean to you?



With the details you've given...I'd strongly suggest you devise a plan of exposure to OM's wife, execute and see what happens in the short term. Status quo...won't work. You've got nothing to lose. OM's wife may make OM leave the hospital. I believe you said he has four kids...he's got lots more to lose than you or your wife. See what happens and plan from there.

Mr. Wondering

thanks andrew3.

The fact that it has been only 3 months scares me into thinking that this thing can't be saved. However, we have been together for 7 years and the only reason we weren't married sooner was because we lived a few hours apart while she was getting her doctorate for 3 years, and we were saving money. She finished her doctorate last summer and we have been living together for 18 months now (15 months before the wedding).

I can clearly see now what led to the the affair. Her residency is extremely demanding and she ends up working 10 hours days. On top of that, she drives and hour each way to work. At the same time, I have been going to school 2 nights a week not getting home until after 10. We were stupid in thinking that we could continue like that for am extended period of time, but her residency is only 3 years long, so we kept telling ourselves that could handle it for a little while until we could move somewhere closer to both of our jobs. Over the last 6/8 months we have been in a rut, but always just blamed it on work and the distance of both our commutes (i commute almost an hour in the opposite direction). At the same time, she changed work groups in her residency and began to become friends with the OM. After reading this sight, it is so clear to me that while we were tiring ourselves out with work and school, we no longer had the energy to meet each other EAs. So, she found the rest of needs met with the OM. While it worries me that she is doing this after only 3 months, I am confident that if I can find a way to end the affair and work on Plan A, that we have a good chance of succeeding.

My dilemma right now is who to tell about the affair. I have read post from people that say exposure was the key to ending the affair, but others have said that exposure only made things worse. My options are her mother, her sisters, her friends, the OMW, and/or HR at the university. Her parents are divorced because her father cheated on her mother, so I think that her family members would be supportive. I am also fairly confident that her friends will be supportive. I am up in the air about telling the OMW because they have kids and it would break my heart to put her and them through that if not necessary. But then I think that if I really want this to succeed, she should really know that that there is pressure from both sides to end the affair. The last option is to tell HR. I am scared to tell anyone at this point because she is such a private person and would kill me if she knew i told anyone. In any kind of problem she has, she always prefers to work it out on her own.

Sorry if i seem to be giving the same excuses over and over, I think i need to work myself up to go ahead with exposure.

Thanks to everyone for their help with this.

No, exposure makes things worse for the affair, but not for the marriage. Exposure is like chemotherapy to cancer, it is a GOOD THING. While the chemotherapy might be painful and uncomfortable, it does have the effect of killing cancer.


Telling the OMW will be the most important exposure, alarrson. She is being harmed behind her back and cannot fix the problem if she doesn't know the truth. She must know so she can have an opportunity to save her marriage and protect herself and her children from your wife and her H. Would you use this logic if you knew her bookkeeper was embezzling money from her? Or would you recognize that she needs to know the truth, no matter how painful, so she can protect herself?

I would also recommend telling her closest family members. They may not be supportive, but the exposure will ruin the fantasy aspect of the affair. I am sure she wants her family's approval and that approval will be diminished if they know she is in an adulterous affair.


She will be angry no matter what. But that is an expectation. You have a better chance of saving your marriage if you DO expose at work because the affair won't be as much fun if others are watching. It may also prevent the OM from pursuing other women at work.


That is about as realistic as expecting a falling down drunk to "work it out on his own." Your wife's best thinking got her in this mess, just remember that.

You have a much better chance of saving your marriage if you do expose at work than if you don't. BECAUSE, this is hopeless if they continue to work together. HOPELESS. Exposing at work motivates one of them to leave due to the pressure. Women and men who have affairs with married people quickly become PARIAHS in the workplace. If it has not gone physical YET, it will soon enough if they continue to work together.

Your marriage CAN survive some temporary anger, but it cannot survive an ongoing affair. Just keep that in mind. Doing nothing increases the likelihood of divorce.

And I realize you believe that living together beforehand constitutes HISTORY, but all it really does is set up a renters mentality in the marriage. Living together is a TEST DRIVE, rather than a PURCHASE, and when one marries after having lived a TEST DRIVE, they tend to take those very traits into the marriage. That is something for future discussion, but I just want to emphasize that your living together was harmful and not helpful.

alarrson8


Again:

Send emails and letter to the university president, Human Resources, and the university board members. Then call your WW's parent's and her siblings. The call the OMW.

Exposing to friends will not be effective. You need to get your WW away from the OM.

Exposure will either get OM fired, your wife fired, or both fired. This may sound bad, but it is the best thing to happen.

Affairs will not end if there is still contact between the affair partners. Working for the same business makes it easy for the AP's to have contact. If you want to kill the affair you need NC, no contact.

Man up, expose, do it today.

Reread the response to your thread. Exposure brings initial WW anger. It's as putting iodine on a cut. Once the sting is over, and NC is in place the affair has a chance to die and the marriage to recover.

"she admitted to the affair, but said that they haven't had sex"

This is one of the most often told lies. The check is in the mail, I won't cum inside you, and the OM didn't do me.

Experience has shown this will be a lie, as the WW is scrambling to keep you off balance and off the trail of truth.

Even if I was to agree that this was not a lie, why would you allow this affair to happen when you can kill it with exposure.

Your waiting, delaying, procrastinating, pausing, will only give the OM enough time to nail your WW. If that is what you want then continue to not take action.

Anything less then exposure in this case is not taking action. Man Up.

alarrson, one other thing to keep in mind. If they continue to work together your wife will not withdraw from the fog and the affair is very likely to turn into a 5, 10 year on again, off again affair. She will certainly not recover.

What that means is that you are facing either a long term affair with this guy OR a wayward wife who does this AGAIN because she never recovered from the 1st affair. In other words, you have nothing to lose if you expose at work and everything to gain because this is doomed as it is now.

And let me explain more fully. Affairs are ADDICTIONS. They are very much like an alcohol addiction and it is very important that you understand this aspect of affairs. This is why absolute no contact is essential to recovery. As with an alcoholic only complete abstinence will result in recovery.

Ask yourself if you think an alcoholic would recover if he continued to drink but changed the name of his drinks to "workplace drinks?" I promise you he will never sober up. It is the same with affairees working together. They NEVER withdraw, hence they NEVER recover.

Thanks everyone for calling me out on this.

I think I'll start with telling her sister and the OMW. The OM and OMW live 75 miles away and the only means I have of contacting the OMW is the home phone number and physically going to their house. Being the weekend, I have no way of doing this without letting my WW or the OM know. Should I wait to contact her sister until after I have talked to the OMW, or if I get some time this weekend should I go ahead and talk to her sister anyway? Is there a big reason to contact everyone at the same time? Any suggestions for the best way to break it to the OMW, phone call or drive out to their house when i know the OM is at work?

With the help of everyone here, I think I am ready to Man Up, thanks everyone

alarrson, I would suggest calling the OMW and telling her what you know. Offer to meet with her and most certainly send her the evidence you have. Give her your # and make an agreement to stay in touch so you can compare notes and work together to kill the affair.

You would want to do the other exposures on the same day, if possible, in order to achieve the maximum effect.

When you expose to family members, tell them about the affair, giving the OM's name and position, and [very important!!] ASK FOR THEIR ADVICE! Tell them you are trying to save your marriage and ask for their advice. Doing that seems to be more effective in gaining their support.

For workplace exposure, we have a template written by one of our members who is a corporate attorney; I will post it below. The best way to do a workplace exposure is to send a certified letter to the Director of HR, a key VP, and supervisors of the affairees. They should all be cced on each letter so no one gives into the temptation to deep six the letter.

When you do this, your W will be FURIOUS. That is an expectation. She will threaten and rant and rave, but you just have to let it slide off your back and not scare you. You have taken the crack pipe away from the crack head and she is, naturally, angry. Don't react, simply tell her you are sorry she is so upset but these people had a right to know about the affair. Don't try and reason with her because that will be a waste of time.

I will look for the letter and post it.

To Whom It May Concern:

This letter is to bring a matter to your attention that may be a violation of your Company's Code of Conduct and/or other policies, procedures and business ethics.

WS and WS are involved in an extramarital affair that is taking place, primarily, in the workplace. Aside from the potential sexual harassment claims this situation presents, it also involves the inappropriate use of company resources and assets. WS and WS are using company time and company resources to further their affair. If you check the call histories on their office and cell phones along with their workstation computers, you will find the two of them are spending an inordinate amount of what should be productive work time to further their sexual relationship.

If you have any questions, please call me at xxx-xxxx. Otherwise, I will anticipate a response from you once you have investigated these concerns and taken appropriate corrective action.

Regards,

BS

MelodyLane, thanks for the letter template.

I need some advice concerning my upcoming discussion with the OMW.

D-day was tuesday. I first noticed tons of text messages and phone calls and that made me check her email where i found the real dirt. When i told her what I had found I told her about checking email and cell phone records. This happened before I discovered this site, but needless to say, I should not have exposed all of my spying methods. Since then there have been no text messages and she changed her email password. They are still talking by phone, but my WW either calls his house now or his office number, no longer the cell. I guess they think that since the numbers aren't programmed into her phone, that they are just local calls made for work and that I won't investigate the number. Also, I have been able to figure out her new email password, but she is deleting emails as the receives and sends them, so I have to check often.

I am planning on talking to the OMW on monday, but I am not sure how much I should tell her about my spying methods. I am sure she will be on my side, but she might not be able to hold back my methods from her husband. If that happens, I risk driving their communication further underground, and then it makes it extremely hard to monitor their activities. I have enough evidence from my initial discovery to get her to believe me. Am I best off just telling her what I found tuesday and then express to her what i suspect is still going on? Then, once she is able to confront her husband and clear her head we can then discuss more details of the spying. Does this sound like a good plan. Should I do the same thing when talking to my WW's family? If they confront her, I don't want to risk exposing my methods just yet.

One good note is that I sat my WW down today and went over how necessary it is that they break off all contact. Of course she said that she could handle occasional work related interaction. This may not sound like good news to any of you, but in am email conversation later today between them, they both expressed frustration at how hard it is getting to keep the thing going. I am excited about how the new pressure from the OMW will further make them realize that the affair is just not worth it.

Thanks again for everyone's help

Alarson,

You are a young man, a very young man. You are also newly married and this is a huge thing.

You have been given the advice but you have delayed.

You know several things.

1. Your W is a liar, and she is lying to you.

2. Your W is using you and has in the past.

3. You should have already exposed this affair to OM's W, and your family, the longer you wait, the worse it gets.

4. Your W is arrogant and frankly that is commonly found in physicians and PhD.'s, thus she will dismiss you and your concerns as will he.

5. You also know that if she loses this position at this univeristy that it is her OWN FAULT. You have asked her to stop the affair and she has not. She chose the actions she chooses the consequences.

6. At your young age you are probably a bit intimidated to call OM's W, don't be. Don't be intimidated by him either.

Now take your evidence, copy it, put several copies in places that are safe. Next call family and your OM's W, as well as HR, you see there are laws and they are liable for a lawsuite based on a superiors actions.

Young man, this is real life and you don't get a second chance to do this correctly. It may end your marriage but you don't really have a marriage and you need to understand that. She has broken her vows to you, and she frankly does not care about you right now other than to look good to others.

If you are going to fight, fight to win, and to do that exposure is a must and so is pressure. You can plan A her, but first the affair must be brought to the light of day, and the participants in this mess made to realize the risks they are running. Your W's OM is very likely also liable for this affair.

Time to play a little hardball. You will respect yourself more if you do and give your W a second chance. Your call, but quit dancing around.

God Bless,

JL

Just Learning



My first advice came this morning, and since it is saturday and my wife and I spend all day together, there is no way of compiling all the evidence and contact the OM's W today. Tomorrow is out of the question because from reading their emails i have found out that the OM's W will be away all day with the kids and I don't have a cell number for her, just the house phone. My plan is to call her on monday and then drive the 2 hours to where they live and have a face-to-face to develop our game plan.


I am not intimidated by the OM's W, I have met her before. But you are probably right about being intimidated by the OM. I have made up my mind to go ahead with the exposure, but I am being careful to make sure that I do it right and not blow my spy cover. Many people on this board have expressed how important it is to be able to verify your spouse's actions during plan A, and I want to make sure I still have that intact.


Thank you though for giving it to me straight. I would like your opinion on my previous post about not sharing all of my snooping details with the OM's W during out initial conversation in case she doesn't handle it very well and accidentally shares these details with her H. Of course once the initial shock has passed, I plan on sharing all of my spy techniques with her so that together we can put together a pretty accurate journal of their activities.

Alarrson,
You mentioned that you are checking your wife's email often, but there is a MUCH better way. Its called a keylogger. The one that I liked is http://www.relytec.com/

Install that on your home computer and never worry about missing anything your wife does again. You will see everything she types, everything she views, everything she tries to delete. Not only does it record every keystroke she makes, but it will also take screenshots every time she hits enter or clicks the mouse. It runs completely secretly once you set a few options up. It can also email you the logs whenever it detects a network connection.

I discovered both of my wife's affairs that way. It was sort of tragically humorous going through the visual logs and watching her working to cover her steps. If you have access to the computer she uses, this should be a first step of any betrayed spouse.

already done. That is how i discovered her new password. But, I will still have to check her email regularly because she sends and deletes many of the emails while at work. The good thing is that they keep replying to the same email, so even if I miss a few, the ones I do find have all the history in them. the keylogger i use is www.refog.com. It has all the capabilities you mentioned like screen captures, logging text types and deleted, and web access.

Alarson,

Personally, I would simply tell OM's W that you know they are having an affair and tell her you have evidence. If you know of specific events where the two of them have been together in places they were not supposed to be, you might describe the event for her and have her ask her H. I think his reaction will probably tell her what she needs to know.

I would not tell her where you are getting your information, other than you have taken measure to obtain this information since you strongly felt your W was cheating on you. You could also suggest means whereby she can obtain similar information if that is feasible.

The main point is she then knows of the affair, she knows you have evidence, and she now has to make decisions to protect herself and her family.

I would urge you to get tested for STD's and you should also suggest the same to OM's W. Who know what everyone has been up to before all of this.

God Bless,

JL