The next phone bill won't be here until the 12th. It is going to be a long 9 days, but I will be able to tell when this started and if they are still communicating.

It gives me no details on text messages, just the count.

I am looking around for some way to get those. Her phone doesn't have a SIM card so the sim card data recovery thing won't work even though it sounds like a great product.

It really doesn't matter though. She's done whats she done and now I have to come to grips with divorcing her and the impact it will have on my children.

When you see the phone bill, you'll know.

At that point, you don't have to go to Plan D (divorce).

You could Plan A for the next 9 days or so, then when you get the bill if there's evidence of an A, you could expose and go to immediate Plan B.

Of course you can certainly D if you want to.

Can you go online to your cell provider and look at the bill there? Why do you have to wait for the paper bill to arrive?

if you go to at&t online you can see the actual breakdown. numbers she called, numbers she texted, etc. have you tried your providers website?

The bills are online, but they don't post them until the 12th.

The last thing I want is plan D.....

Here is my thought process, and I know a lot of you don't think she is worth saving.

I hope to get irrefutable evidence either from the voice recorder or a PI. (Phone bills won't do it, she will say it was work, there will be an excuse). Get her to admit to what happened and get into counseling. I know she doesn't want me to leave, she doesn't want to hurt our children, she just wants to cake eat whenever a piece of cake is available to her.

I know i am a sap, but I am having a hard time calling the lawyer and sitting down with my children to have this talk. They don't deserve this.

That is what keeps bringing me back to reconciliation - the kids. Isn't it my job to make them as happy as I can and to make sure they grow up in a good environment? Me as one person has to swallow a big pill and everyone else stays happy. What if I get another 9 years this time? In 9 years the kids are not an issue. It is only my happiness at stake.

I know it is a cop out and that is the easy way, but I can do it.

I know, I am a door mat, but someone has to see the reasoning behind that.

You sound just like me.

NOPE...NOT even a little.

I lived through this cr@p as a kid all because my father wasn't strong enough to leave a serial cheating ho. And guess what...it teaches children horrible lessons when their father won't stand up for himself and fight.

It is a cop out and a HUGE disservice to your children.

yes, he does...and he is destined to go down your mistake filled path unless he grows a set and quick.

""""""he next phone bill won't be here until the 12th."""""""

why wait for the phone bill? can't you just go online and look up her phone history? we do that all the time dealing with our kids.

i have to agree with most others here on the plan D. if nothing else get the papers filled oout and served. then if she can prove you are wrong you always have the option of cancelling the D.

***NOTE*** i am NOT advocating using this as a mear threat. if you have her served you have to be prepared to follow thru. however if she did turn up clean then you always have an option.

as for this being her 2nd A. if she did this a 2nd time, with your job taking you away for several days at a time, what makes you think it hasn't happened in the last 9 years?

a ONS or twenty eight more times, does it really matter after knowing what damage her 1st A caused.

when my w had her A she was always home by 7 - 7:30ish. her an om would meet at 4:30 - 5 and have their fun then go home to their family's.

first you are not a doormat. you simply want to be a great father for your kids no matter what the expense. so maybe a martyr.

i know exactly what you are feeling when you say "for the kids". that was one of my biggest reasons for staying in my marriage.

that being said i was very ready to move on. and my w's A lasted only 2 months EA and 1 month PA. had she not come out of her fog as quickly as she did. we would have surely been D'd.

my strong plan B and leaving the D papers on the dining room table for her to see where i was heading are the biggest factors in her realizing what was ahead.

yes you do want to make sure your kids grow up in a safe, healthy and secure environment. but a home where the mom is running around whenever she gets the itch is not that environment.

i know at their ages your kids will be affected if D is the answer. but from what i have seen they are very resillent.

it is almost like they don't expect their parents to stay married for their whole lives. they usually have so many friends living in 2 homes that it has become very normal for them.

and THAT is very sad.

i know you know but make sure you don't jump the gun with the kid "talk".

I hear you, I know a divorce is the right thing to do. Not sure I can do it though.................

Weak.

Listen to me and listen GOOD.

I tried the doormat strategy and it lmost cost me my life.

A woman has ZERO respect for a weak man.

Did you comprehend that?

ZERO.

No matter how you try to spin it in your head, she has NO respect for you.

You will have to gain that respect with absolute power and control of the situation which irrefutable evidence and DO NOT back down.

File a LSA if needed to show you are serious and act as if a divorce is the best thing to ever happen.

Let her see that you will indeed financially wreck you both for life over this.

If you don't act immediately, the monster will devour your soul.

Now that's a bit of hyperbole! I’m impressed.

Bottom line, HBD – do what you want.

But I cannot resist typing, once again: WS never, ever change.

That’s what you most need to understand.

PS: I am willing to bet your firstborn this isn’t the only adultery in the past nine years, to boot.

It's the only way I can assemble my thoughts now.

whoopee.....

Was her first A exposed?

Personally I'd plan D. The fact that she witnessed your pain and suffering from A#1 and could do that again to you would be enough to kick her to the curb.

Well then HBD, please use my story as a lesson on what not to do.

"""""""""""Not sure I can do it though"""""""'

i hear what you are saying. when my w had her A the 1st thing i thought was plan D. it seemed like the only sensible choice i had. but i could not go thru with it.

it took me a couple of weeks before i finally came to the realization that i may have no other choice.

but it was tough getting to that point.

i must admit though that should she ever stray again it would be over in a new york second

Yes, exposed and exposed well. I was able to nip that one in the bud, but I had good proof.

I keep talking about proof, but what I would really need is to prove a negative - which is not going to happen. Maybe it was a ONS, it's over and therefore I will never get any proof positive. The proof positive is only in my heart and my mind. I know what happened, so who is the proof for?

Everyone here says divorce, I know divorce is the right thing to do even though it is the hardest thing to do.

So either proof negative or divorce. Proof negative is never going to happen, so why am I out buying recorders, monitoring emails, keyloggers, etc when none of those are going to give me proof negative?

So the only answer is divorce. Sounds reasonable, huh?

Damnit....................

hbd,,,,,, ok listen you need proof positive and don't feel it is posible. without doing some underhanded stuff should a certain ph # show up on the cell bill on the 12th it may never happen.

then you have to look yourself in the mirror and decide whether YOU can live with the unknown fact that she MAY have had a ONS.

yes i said "MAY" because YOU need positive proof.

without that proof you have to make the choice that best fits YOUR life and tolerences.

only you can do that no matter what anyone here says.

trust me i get it about how hard the big D is.

pullin for you to find some peace in this.

I know everyone here says plan D - thread closed.

But dogonnit, I still want to talk about it.

I know she had an affair, I know she slept with the 23 year old. I know these things. I am still going to Plan A and snoop. For what reason I don't know.

Well, actually I do know - I am hoping I over-reacted and I am dead wrong.

This all happened Saturday night/Sunday morning and like an idiot I jumped on an airplane and left town. I have not been back since. I am going home tomorrow.

I got a voice recorder and have been testing with it like an idiot all week and I think it is ready to go. I am going to try and get access to her car tomorrow and put it in there so I can get her on the way home conversation if there is one. Maybe I will go by and see if she wants to go to lunch and find a way to get her car open so I can drop it in.

I have a keylogger on her computer at home and there has been nothing going on there. I think she knows that I have access to her home email and she may have a suspicion that I have access to her work email as well. I can only see what she sends, but so far both accounts have been clean. Nothing incriminating or even suspicious on the computer.

One night this week the kids were staying with her mother since they didn't have school on election day. Knowing she was going to be alone was hard. She knew that and offered to stay on the phone with me all night. We both turned on the speaker phones and left them on all night. I heard her alarm go off the next morning and she told me she was getting ready for work.

I have been having a hard time getting access to current call activity on her cell phone, but there is one thing I can see and it tells you how many minutes have been used. I was watching it all that afternoon and evening and there were no minutes being used. I checked it the next morning before she got up and there was 15 minutes of useage. I don't know how up to date that screen is that I was looking at, but it does look like (from what it said) that between 10:00 or so until the next morning there was 15 minutes of airtime used. Ordinarily I would assume it was the screen I was looking at, but I assume the worse.

I also have full access to the current useage of our home phone and there have been no suspicios call activity going on there.

So if this is ongoing he is either out of town (I know he is off this week, so he may have gone home to his mommy) or all of this is going on via cell.

No funny web sites, no chat activity, nothing.

Only thing suspicious this week is the 15 minutes of mystery airtime, and tonight.

Tonight:
She tells me today that she has a hair appointment at 7:00 PM. She told me she would call me from there and be glad to send me a picture from her phone while she was there. That is not really odd, but I know where she gets her hair done. They always call the day before to confirm the appointment. They didn't call. Ok, so maybe she gave them her work number? I would obviously see the charge on our bank account as soon as she paid, so I would know what time she left and what time she got home. In a normal situation I would think nothing of it, but my mind is racing.

I know I am sounding like I am trying to convince myself nothing happened or nothing is going on, but I know what happened. Maybe it is natural self preservation tactic my mind is taking to help me keep my sanity.

I am supposed to be home all of next week. We'll see if the recorder shows anything tomorrow and Friday and then the phone bill comes in Tuesday. I am planning on looking at some houses next week. I think if I took that step and actually had a place to live maybe the plan D wouldn't look so hard.