Hi there everyone, hope your new year is going better than mine, and hope I can get some feedback on my situation. I have been married for 13 years, and have two girls aged 11 and 8. We have shown many of the classic signs of relationship issues, as emotional needs have not been met on both sides within our marriage, communication being the big one. We were so focused on doing all we can for our kids, we forgot to take care of the marital relationship. About a year ago, an event happened that made me totally re-examine the relationship, and I did a complete 180 in terms of how to work at the relationship. Unfortunately, my wife had been sending messages to me about a year before that things were not all that great, but I just didn’t pick up on them until it was too late. I admit to not being the best communicator out there, but I have honestly tried to improve myself and fulfill that emotional need with my wife. I have learned a lot from this website regarding all the other important emotional needs that are required in a relationship. I believe I am a much better communicator now. I have learned so much in the last year or so on what it takes to really have a successful relationship and be a great husband, I just wish I would have had the intuition to do this earlier.

Anyways, so as mentioned there are some issues in the relationship that the two of us have brought out in the open over the last little while. We have both agreed to try and fix things. I have been tirelessly working to do all I can to improve the relationship, but it seems at every turn, the wall my wife has put up around herself cannot be taken down. Knowing what I know now about relationships, I can totally understand why my wife has put up the wall. I realize it does not come down overnight, but I ran across a situation over the holidays I would like to get some feedback on. I have been suspicious over the last year or so that my wife has been up to something with another man, who is divorced with 2 kids of his own and is currently single. Our youngest girl is very good friends with one of his girls through sporting activities, and as such there is a lot of contact between my wife and the other man. I have noticed a new, disturbing behaviour in my wife over the last 6 months or so, where she will basically disappear to the bathroom a number of times over the course of a night when we are out socializing. Again this happened over the holidays, and got to the point where I was suspecting she was text messaging with “someone else”. So one night, I took a look on her phone, and there was a text message sent to the other man that said “Sweet dreams to you too….Have a good day tomorrow.” There was also an text acronym that I couldn’t figure out, but to me seems to be some sort of pet phrase. This happened when the other man was in the Caribbean on a vacation with his family. So I confronted her on this, and she said they are “just friends”, and that they have an awkward relationship due to the kids. She swore this was the truth, but I told her how uncomfortable and inappropriate it was. She agreed it was inappropriate, but again said they are just friends. Anyways, on New Year’s eve she did the classic run to the bathroom again, and I reviewed her text history, and saw she sent the other man a text just before sending me a text message. It is a daily thing, and I'm afraid it has probably been that way for a while.

I am totally messed up by this, and just wondering if there is any way that this sort of behaviour cannot be considered an affair? What can I do to get her to truthfully admit her adultery? My thoughts now are that the other man is the reason the wall between my wife and I cannot be taken down. I am almost at the point of telling her to leave me and go be with the other man, as the pain I am feeling is so deep and profound, I don’t know if I can ever trust her again. My family means the absolute world to me, but I just can’t imagine living through this type of pain.

Thanks for any thoughts or ideas....All the best, Marty....

Sorry you are here.

Yes this clearly sounds like adultery. Certainly emotional adultery and given the timeline, probably sexual as well.

Any other signs the past few months?

Lots of nail and hair care?
New clothes?
New, sexier panties?
Dieting or working out?
Change of interests?
Change of taste in music?

Check your credit card bills for the past few months.

Time to snoop deeper.


In what context is this contact?

Marty: Welcome to MB.com! Glad you are here. Please take some time and READ, READ, READ and read some more. Great information here.

That said, I guess the best advice I can give you is something I learned during both my WWs affairs (yes, two). My gut told me something was wrong and I resisted the urge, thinking I could trust her. In BOTH cases my gut was right...there was another man!

Trust your guts and do a little digging. Look at phone bills, look to text records, even dig around in e-mails. Be careful, as you might not like what you find.

Think about what you want from your marriage. This is going to sound harsh, but don't think of what's best for the kids, wife, extended family...what do YOU want to do? That was hard for me to fathom, but I really appreciated all the feedback I got here and I'm working on my marriage.

Read, read, read and read. And ask questions here. Lots of great advice from people who have experienced this stuff. Much better and more experienced people than me.

Hang in there!

Your best option is to hire a PI and have them followed for a week, see what happens. If you're not willing to do that (a PI costs a lot less than a divorce!), at least put a voice-activated recorder under the seat of her car, and install a keylogger on whatever computer she uses. Also get records of the text messages from your phone company. Best to build up a good bit of evidence before you expose, but don't wait too long, as it may progress to a PA if it hasn't already.

This is EXACTLY how I finally caught my H in his A. Wishing the OW a sweet night.

Men and women who are "just friends" DON'T wish each other sweet dreams. Period.

I second the continued snooping. Three words. CELL PHONE RECORDS. Prepare yourself. It is exceedingly difficult to see how many hours a WS can spend using a cell phone to call and text the OP. But also exceedingly NECESARRY.

You are in the right place. Keep posting. Experts will chime in to help soon.

Blessings,
WH2LE

Yes, it's an affair, and I'd bet a paycheck that it's not just flirty texts. If he's texting her during his Caribbean vacation, they're having sex.

Listen to these people, gather tangible proof of the affair (start with cellphone records and computer usage), then expose, expose, expose. His family, her family, teammates' parents, and coaches if necessary. See if they still think what they're doing is fun and adventurous when everyone knows.

Your child will lose a friend, but that isn't your fault.

Don't think for a second that the affair is your fault.



How suspicious does your wife think you are?

Marty, the way to resolve this is to get it out into the open. Affairs thrive on secrecy, so getting the truth and getting it out there will be devastating to the affair. You have to kill this affair in order to save your marriage. As long as the affair is going on, you can't possibly work on your marriage.

Now, asking her is not the solution. You need to independently find out the truth. That means hiring a PI to have her followed, checking her phone bill, tapping your phones, installing a voice activated recorder in her gas and/or installing a GPS on her car so you can track her whereabouts.

I would figure out the most likely time she would be meeting up with the OM and have the PI follow her during that time and get photos.

When you get the goods, come back here and we will help you best utilize this intel in a way that is most likely to SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE. The advice we are giving here is with that purpose in mind.

But, you cannot move forward until you find out the truth. You will remain at a roadblock and her affair will become more and more entrenched until you take some action. And DO NOT even bother asking her. Just find out on your own and then come back here.

This contradicts what I just posted, but:

Personally, if I really thought there was a chance they hadn't had sex yet, I would not wait to intervene, even without proof. I'd make it up if I had to, for the purposes of exposure. Forget waiting for your wife to confirm your suspicions, and proceed as if you have proof. Assume you are correct...this isn't a court of law. You already know the relationship is inappropriate. That fact by itself is grounds for a husband to step in and take action.

If I had stopped my wife's affair before they had sex the first time, this whole thing wouldn't be half the nightmare it is now.

It's probably a BH thing, but the pain is all about the sex for me.

Texts? Emails? Bah.

If only I could've prevented the sex...

Get online and check your phone records.
Check your credit cards.
Check her purse and or briefcase.
Search the house.
Search her car.
Search the dressers.

They like to keep souvenirs.

Stay cool. Don't let her suspect you of doing any of this. Don't take weeks to do this. Do it now.

Does she work outside of the house?

If he doesn't investigate and get the goods NOW before accusing, the affairees will go further underground and it will be much harder to get the truth. The longer it takes to get the truth, the farther off recovery is. If he confronts without evidence, he is just showing her his poker hand. better to get the goods now while the getting is good and THEN tip his hand when he has a full house.

Secondly, if this is an affair, and I think it is, it has been going on for a year. I doubt it is not already physical given her emotional attachment to this man.

chrisner is right. Don't tip your hand without the goods. You will lose your opportunity to get the goods.

Maybe I'm more off-kilter than I thought, but I'd give her and/or OM one chance to confess before I began exposure. That would include the parents of the other kids on his daughter's team. There's always next season, and another team.

Maybe I'd save exposure to the two lovebirds' families for when I had proof, but everyone else should be fair game right now.

Oh yeah, that's an affair alright. My FWH had an emotional affair with a woman in another state. Cyber sex over text, she sent him a mostly nude pic phone calls....

"The goods" are worthless, unless he really is unsure about the cheating, or if he lives a "fault divorce" state.

He knows she's cheating, he can get his hands on phone records, nothing else should be required...unless he's already thought of as a nutjob or something.

If he really thinks (or has convinced himself) they haven't slept together yet, time is of the essence.

I would've set a schoolbus full of orphans on fire and pushed it off a cliff if it would've prevented my wife from having sex with another man.

But that's just me.

Disagree, Krazy, he has nothing but alot of texts right now, which is being dismissed as a "friendship." He has nothing. He has already presented what he has and she has denied. It is worthless.

How would he know if he doesn't investigate? This makes no sense.

His intel about alot of texts has already been presented and it has stopped NOTHING. I am not getting why you think doing the same thing AGAIN would stop anything? How do you figure?

Secondly, in order to kill the affair he has to bring it out into the open. He has nothing to BRING OUT. He knows nothing. He has nothing to expose.

He needs to get the goods FIRST and then confront. Accusing without any information is strategically stupid because it only drives the affairees further underground and makes it harder to get the goods. Accusing without any information is a waste of time that helps no one.

Exactly the same thing happened to me. I noticed long "bathroom breaks" for several months. I had dreams about H having an affair with her and asked him point blank 3 times if they were having an A and he denied it. He didn't admit it until I saw a series of emails (8/11/08) which were undeniable. The most painful things I have ever read. Even then he tried to deny it.

BTW, if there are acronyms you don't know (mwah, lymy..) you can google them and get a dictionary of text acronyms.

He also said when I found out "I was just now going to break up with her". Lie... Later, "there is no baby". Lie, there were twins age 7 and she was pg again but had a spontaeous miscarriage. Oh, and they had an apartment too.

Get a GPS for the car. I learned a lot. You can get one you hide and download to your computer. Cheaper than a PI. You can Google the address and get a street view. Thats how I found the apartment. I paid $200 but I saw them at Sam's Club for $80.

This is a no-fault divorce state so it doesn't matter whether there was a "fault" for divorce. You need to find out what the truth is. You can't deal with this until you know. Sorry, but I thought my H was the most honest, trustworthy, wonderful man in the world...

Don't let them know you are tracking them until you are sure. You can keep track of her excuses and compare with the GPS records. It is for your piece of mind. And you have every right to do it, your vehicles are likely legally jointly owned and you have a right to know where your property is.

Does anyone know how to get the phone records?

I wonder if he truly is divorced...

What single man goes to the bahamas with his family...that doesn't include at least a girlfriend...

I was thinking the same thing. And if he is separated, etc, did this affair cause it? But I can't imagine a single man taking 2 kids on caribbean vacation. That is just bizarre. There is a lot going on here that needs to be flushed out.

Marty,
Speaking as a FWW, this is definitely an affair. I have no doubt that it is physical. As the saying goes, it takes one to know one. While I understand Krazy's point completely, I just know that this A is what it is.

What exposed my A was I accidently called my H while I was in OM's car. I hit the call button on my phone when I leaned up against something. We were on our way to lunch and I called my H and left a message on his voicemail and didn't know it!

That afternoon, my H called me at work and asked where I had been because he tried to call me at my desk. I lied and told him that I was at my desk, but I was talking to my mom on the phone.

When he confronted me with the evidence that I was with the OM, I told him that we were just friends but I knew that he didn't appreciate our friendship, so I lied about going to lunch with him. That was my excuse.

Inside I knew that it was all going to come to a head soon. By this time, I wanted to stop the lies. I was contemplating suicide by this time too so that I could get out of telling him.

That night, my H didn't talk to me at all. He was furious that I lied to him and he didn't want anything to do with me. The next day he spent the afternoon on his motocycle, just blowing off steam. When he got home, he confronted me again. His exact words were, "Stop talking to me like I'm some kind of idiot. Why don't you tell me what's going on?"

That's when I told him I was having an affair. I've never seen anyone in so much pain as I did that night. I wished that I could put my arms around him, but he pulled away from me every time. My husband has been to war, he's been shot at, and he has had a lot of loss in his life, but this hurt worse than anything.

I was ready to end my affair when it was exposed. As Dr. Harley explains, most affairs die a natural death. If your wife's affair isn't nearing the end, she will deny all of your confrontations because she isn't willing to let it go yet. That's why melody is right about getting all of your evidence first.

I hope this helps Marty. Good luck to you and God Bless. I pray that God will intervene.

-MrsZ