Before I jump in on this one with Krazy, I think I'll wait to see if Marty actually comes back and has what it takes to take the difficult ACTIONS that will be necessary ... or if he is just one of the hit and run BH conflict avoiders who would rather just play "ostrich".

Wow, I am overwhelmed by the responses already. Thank you all so much. I don't want to say I was in denial, but the truth just hits me so hard and it is really crushing me, almost crippling me. Yes, the other man divorced about 6 or 7 years ago, and unfortunately his ex-wife passed away soon after. She came down with cancer, and had a brief battle. He had another 3-4 year relationship, but cut that off about 2 years ago. This guy is a multi,multi-millionaire, and I make an honest working man living working in the public sector. Impossible to compete for sure. Hello David vs. Goliath. I forgot to include these details when I had my initial rant, sorry, there's lots of emotion right now. Also, she said that their relationship started because of all the pain he has gone through with the divorce, flood of his mega-house, and the fact that his kids don't have a mom. A crying shoulder in some respects. I guess maybe she wants to fill that void with him to perhaps ease his pain, and get the benefits at the same time. Go figure!!!

She has changed a number of things about her appearance. One thing I recalled after the first post is that I have monitored her internet use quite a bit recently. She doesn't have the saavy to clear what I can see, but I did find a search she performed that asked "Why women cheat". So taking that into the equation, it seems pretty overwhelming. Also, I don't recall seeing very many credit card and phone bills over the last while.

Over the last two nights, I have got my hands on the cellphone bills online, and have started analysis. She is hiding her phone every night, but I am finding it. I may have screwed up a bit, as she is now deleting the inbox and outbox. However, I can still tell she is texting him based on other means. I am going to contact the phone company to see if it is possible to get transcripts. I am at the point right now to confront her for what may be the last time about the affair. I will continue to get any piece of intel.

Wow, totally overwhelming at this point. I've always put my family before myself as that is the kind of guy I am, and find it hard to put myself first. What I want is a honest, happy, contented and loving relationship with a women. At this point, I just can't fathom fixing things, but as some of the posts mentioned, there is a chance for this to be fixed. I pray for peace in my heart, as it feels like pounding out of my chest.

Thanks again everyone, I truly appreciate your thoughts!!!!

Rich, huh?

Then he may not appreciate having his name dragged through the mud. That would probably bother him much more than, say, a "regular guy" like you and me.

Don't back down just because he has money. Do you happen to live in a state with Alienation of Affection laws?

Damn, Krazy ... we are thinking alike.

Marty,

You now find yourself at WAR ... and part of that is looking for any weaknesses in your opponent. His wealth and "standing" in the community may be just the weakness you need, "IF" you want to try to salvage your M.

However, THAT is YOUR call ... no one will think any less of you if you choose to go straight to Plan D ... as the BH, you have earned the right to make that decision for yourself.

This group is great, if you can reveal your state of residence, we can tell you if there are "Alienation of Affection" laws on the books in your state ... if so, OM may have to pay dearly for his fun.

Well, the texting is one bad sign, but what about her daily schedule? Does she work? Any unexplained absences, trips, overnights?

My WW sold it as a friendship. Once she started "hiding' the friendship, I came down hard and found out.

If you confront before having some evidence, they may just deny and go deeper underground.

There are threads here about catching WS, digital audio recorders, GPS trackers, PIs, keystroke loggers.

My bust was with a keystroke logger -- easy enough if she is using a PC and not a cellhone all the time.

If there are times of the day you suspect they hook up, that is easy enough too...

I was in your shoes in August, bud. Gutwrenching. Get on some anti-deps, exercise, watch the booze, keep your kids interests at heart. If you get blow up the affair, it really does get better, like a half of a percent a day.

If she already admitted it was "inappropriate" can you attack there?

I'm with Krazy and Myrev.

No man will jeopardize his cash for a poor married woman.

Start researching his business activities. Is he a lawyer, doctor, professor? Great workplaces to expose!

Do it soon.

She was a stay at home mom until about 3 years ago. She has done some painting on the side, but that job is too physical in nature and is not a long term option. I have not forced her to go find any other type of employment, as I truly understand and appreciate the role of being a mother. I was in the process of starting up a side business to help the family's bottom line, but I can't focus on that at all right now, given my state of mind. Definitely some stress these days for a single income family, but again our kids were our focus. She does have all sorts of flexibility during the day, and I work about 25 minutes away in another town. So there is some ample opportunity for stuff to happen.

Hi again Marty,
Your ww's patterns are so familiar. However, I used to delete the explicit text messages and keep the tame ones so that it appeared that we were just friends. I also kept my phone in plain sight, but only after I did some text file management. One time I even showed him my messages to "put his mind at ease."

Turns out that my husband compared my text messages to the AT&T bills and he found some huge gaps. I would save one message for every ten, basically. He tried finding a way to get the transcripts, but wasn't successful.

One thing I also did was, once I knew my husband was getting suspicious, I went more underground and I texted the OM from my work computer. That's why there was a sudden decline in text messages on our bill.

I know everyone here must think I'm Satan.

Does your wife have a computer at work?

-MrsZ

Personally, I think it's great that you are willing to put this in print to help someone else.

Hey MrsZonie I think it's great to have your perspective.

I found this tidbit after the fact.

There is a 'location' setting on supported cell phones, that for a small monthly fee,
the location of that cell phone can be tracked via the phone co. to your computer on their website.

This is through Bell in Canada, not sure where you are located.

It requires a return text and password so before you do it let me know in a post, on your thread.

Take care

I'm with Verizon Wirelss. I have the master account and the kids and wife are subset of mine. I get all the phone number of calls and texts in an online report every month on the tenth.

OM hid his number to "restricted" right before d-day, but before that I could see 8-10 calls per day, so....busted.

Marty, if she is spending time on the home computer and clicking off when you enter the roon, put in a keystroke logger. It sits in the background, captures every keystroke, snaps screenshots, and logs websites visited. You can get passwords too.

Expect to be sick if it is an affair. The first "darling" made me puke...

We are with Bell up in Canada as well, so I'll look into that option as well. Any idea if we can get numbers where the texts are coming from and going to? I have downloaded the bill, but it doesn't show anything at this point. Thanks all....

You can log into your account online and check I believe.

My husband checked on my messages through my AT&T account online. He couldn't see the content of the messages, but he could see who the messages were going to and coming from. That's what he used to compare to the messages that were left on the phone.

Hi, Marty.

Like MrsZ, I too, am a FWW. Let me share some tricks I incorporated...

I left my cell phone out in the open more after deleting incriminating texts to show I had nothing to hide, but I made my phone password protected once I turned it off so that "the kids can't just pick it up and make random calls to who knows where." The reality was if I hadn't removed FOM's texts and wanted to save them a bit longer, I didn't want H to see them and wanted control over when he had access to it.

I kept computers on but would clear their histories because I wanted to make sure "the kids didn't stumble upon something inappropriate" so "it's easier to just clear everything after each use."

My computer was password protected because my kids like to get online and I needed to make sure "they didn't use my work computer and do something inappropriate."

I needed to start paying my cell phone bill because I was "checking phone plans and needed to see if/how we could save money" because I was texting more than ever. You know, trying to "save money".

My FOM had a long-distance business line into his home where the plan had unlimited minutes. He had his work extension forward to this direct business number. I'd call the work number and go through his extension so my H would see only the work number if he got a hold of my cell bill, not the extention or the direct number of the FOM. (I called a lot to work so these would have explainable.) The FOM then called me on my work number and no one would be the wiser. His bills were the same every month.

We'd send attachments and notes only in emails so we could keep everything on a web-based email account such as Hotmail, Gmail, or Yahoo. That way if H or FOM's W ever did get into our computers, they still wouldn't find anything because they wouldn't know the password to get into the email accounts. And then we could also email from anywhere there was Internet -- at work, at conventions, from my parent's house...

FOM and I would IM through a free IM program, not through work IM. We had code words to ensure the recipiant on the other end was the WW, and not the BS. That way, just in case the program was left logged on, we wouldn't divulge something mistakenly to the wrong person.

The FOM's W suspected things for a few months before their D-day and he had an excuse everytime she accused him with accusations confirmed only by her gut. FOM didn't cover himself one time -- he downloaded an email from me to his new mobile phone, he didn't delete the message, his W used the phone, she snooped, and had the tangible proof he couldn't deny.

I agree with all the others -- get evidence first. WWs are good at hiding, lying, and denying. You can't have an A without those skills and disregard for your spouse's concerns. Get the gizmos, the keylogger, track, and get what you need. My wish is that you're wrong. But sadly I believe your gut is right. As MrsZ states, it takes one to know one.

Good luck, Marty. Stay strong.

I agree with Krazy on this.

I confronted my wife after finding 1 text message (from OM). If I came to MB with that scant evidence, doubtless I would have been told to snoop. Instead I confronted immediuately and she confessed.

Had I left it while I snooped and gathered evidence, she would have been sleeping with OM.

I personally believe evidence is overated if you KNOW what is going on.

By all means get more evidence but I would not let that stop me from proceeding with some exposure. Action baby YEAH!!

Hey Marty

Since this sitch is similar to mine, I agree to confront and expose assuming an affair is going on with only the evidence you have. I do believe you have enough though that something inappropriate is going on.

I confronted immediately which I know prevented any further physical contact, I had an advantage of there being a fair distance between WH and OW. You do not have that advantage.

If I had waited until they met up again, it would have certainly gone from sexual contact to sexual intercourse, further damaging myself and WH, and the whole process thing to follow. (yeah I know long sentence)

Better to feel like a raving fool than someone who regrets not taking action sooner.

Continue to snoop and gather.

This will be the most frustrating. Up here in Canuck land, we actually make it very easy to have an A.

You will not be able to see the # where a text is sent or recieved from on any bill, paper or online. The date and time is all you will see.
You will also not be able to see the # of an incoming cell call, only the location of the tower being used to transfer that call.

If a cell phone is on a text messaging plan, like say unlimited texting for $10/mos. there will be no record of any texts b/c they are in the plan.
If the phone plan has for example 20 texts for $5/mos. the bill will only show the amount of texts above the 20 that is on the plan.

Cheaters have rights too, don't you know.

I found, by accident, on my H cell (which he was not aware of) a folder that holds recent text messages sent and recent text recipients. On H phone these could not be deleted, only moved to the bottom and thrown out as more texts were sent.
It is in an option mode in 'send a text'

If you already know about this, that's great, if you need more info I can further explain it.

Once I googled 'How to cheat and not get caught' you wouldn't believe the info I found there (sickos who made that list) but I used that and worked backwards.

Snoop, snoop, snoop, snoop!

I had that gut feeling about another man, but sadly convinced myself that I

a. trusted her...she would never do this AGAIN
b. didn't really want to know...stuck my head in the sand

Day after Christmas I get her off to work then head to computer for some e-mail. Her hotmail account left open, so I look for mail from one of her friends who went through affair+pregnancy, divorce, etc.

I see mail from him and read...and at the end he says something like "don't get divorce unless you really have to. find out what you are feeling." My heart sank because I knew right then and there the other man existed! More e-mail searching yeilded incriminating e-mails to her friend and the OM.

Fortunatley the OM ended contact about month before DDay, so she was in withdrawl and already starting to work on our relationship.

Get a keylogger! They rock. And you can install them on her work computer and have logs sent to your e-mail. Find the phone records.

Hang in there! We are with you. We support you.

This is a hard time...you are at war with the WW, the A, and trying to show all the love you can with the W and repairing your M. There are just not enough hours in a day...and it takes a herculean effort.

YOU CAN DO IT!! Are you Plan A'ing to your satisfaction?