You are fighting for your marriage AND your four children. This is a battle...a war.

Don't stop snooping/spying. In counseling say you have. Your spying is for your wife's benefit, because if she truly didn't do anything...then she shouldn't mind you snooping around at all. Would you care if your wife checked up on YOU?

Marriage counselors are notoriously bad. Not that you shouldn't go. It's good to take this time with her and focus on talking about your relationship...but what this counselor is saying about spying is wrong. You have no reason to "trust" your wife now. Her actions...over time...can restore that trust but for now...she is untrustworthy.

Your marriage and your kids are depending on you. The truth is out there and it's likely bad. If she never tells you herself ...which many waywards won't...your marriage will NOT recover as you can't build a marriage of extraordinary care based upon a lie. The secret will remain an impediment to intimacy forever. Getting the truth through snooping is actually doing your wife a favor. The truth is the truth. Once you know it...you both can then begin to rebuild your trust starting from an honest point.

Go to walmart or target and get yourself a handheld voice activated digital recorder and hide it in her car. Her conversations with OM or her girlfriend-in-the-know will likely reveal it all. I really hope you discover nothing happened...but I doubt it. In counseling...act as though you trust her completely and believe her. Indicate you are not spying at all anymore...just wanting to rebuild. Maybe she'll let her guard down as you attempt to bust her and do HER and your family a huge favor.

Mr. Wondering

p.s.- Don't be gaslighted by your wife about the "trust" issue either. If the situations were reversed...she'd have camera's and recorders all over the place. "Gaslighting" is just the technique cheaters use to focus the spotlight away from their behavior onto someone else or to blame someone else for their own bad behavior. Don't use that as a defense though...just know...inside...you spy FOR the marriage, FOR her and FOR your kids. You are not some controlling freak...just a rightfully suspicious guy after the truth.

This is ridiculous.

From what's been said on this thread...she is NOT a habitual adulterer.

These two got married 9 years ago. His wife is 30 now...so about age 21 when they married. Her breaking up with him at age 18-21 and then getting back together, repeat, is typical teenage dating drama. She broke no covenant and absent a marriage it's really called "dating" not cheating, let alone adultery.

Anyway...even if you discover she is or did commit adultery with this guy....your marriage can and, likely, will be saved. It's quite likely you two couldn't afford to divorce even if you wanted to. With four kids...you just can't. The statistics support this. The more kids the less likely adultery will result in divorce. But you don't have to settle with just staying married for the kids.

Mrs. W and I rebuilt our marriage and you can too. Your wife likely made a huge MISTAKE. The biggest most hurtful mistake of her life. One that in the long run...will haunt her more than you. It will be tough...but you and she can and will make it.

Mr. Wondering

Just so you have both eyes open about your marriage counselor, statistics indicate that 85% of marriages in counseling fail. The average counselor may understand behavior modification and family of origin (FOO) issues, but they usually don't accurately understand the dynamics of what makes a successful marriage. Ask your counselor if they are familiar with Harley's principals and if they follow the principals. If not, you're wasting money paying this particular counselor for marriage counseling. Phone counseling with the Harleys would be a much wiser investment of your money.

The trouble with continuing to spy at this point is we are at the point in counseling that we are working on trying to rebuild trust. The counselor tells me I need to stop spying and put my trust in her.

I do not share your counselor's opinion. In a marriage there should be no secrets. Your email, phone, facebook, finances, etc. should be completely open to one another. Privacy is okay - you don't need to go into the stinky bathroom while she's pooping, that would probably just embarrass her - but there should be no secrets. I would counter the statement that you need to stop spying and work on building trust by saying that it is not YOUR job to blindly trust your wife. It is HER job to earn your trust. The best way she can do that is by being an open book to you. Allowing you to spy freely is one way, and agreeing to a polygraph is another way.

Exactly, turtle.

W

p.s.- Turtle said: "pooping" & "stinky"

p.p.s. - who'd want to spy on someone "pooping" anyway. :MrEEk:

mmmmm... ....business idea...what about voice activated digital toilet paper roll recorders.

Next time your WW complains and or the half baked counselor say's you should not snoop. Tell them that some one that has nothing to hide, hides nothing.

The only way for your trust to be restored is verifing there is nothing going on.

When you were not vigilant in the past an affair took place. Your sorry put past practices has shown that you can no longer afford to not check up on your WW's activities.

WW's decision to have an affair has caused the need for her where abouts an actions need to be checked. WW has destroyed the trust that was given. Only verificatiion will maintain a liveable level off trust.

WW must be aware that her affair may cause her BH to never have his blind trust to return for her.

Just to clear some things up she never gets mad at me for spying. She has never fought back with me, said I should not be looking at her stuff. All she has every said is that its not what it seems and there is nothing happening. I do feel our counselor is kinda half baked. Although she has given it to my wife a few times pretty good for making bad choices. The counselor says I just need to let old crap go. That seems kind of naive to me. The old crap is why there is not trust. The old crap is why we are talking to her, the old crap is why I have no trust. If this was the first time it had happened I would not be so upset. Now I know all the stuff that happened in the past was when we were teenagers, and a lot of it was just dating stuff. We started dating when we were Juniors in high school. No one is ready for a serious relationship at that age. But there are other signs that make me worry. She lets other guys flirt with her to long and does not put an end to it. She looked up one of her old boyfriends in the past. So with that stuff I just wonder if she grew out of the stupid teenager crap or not.

I'll have to agree with your counselor about stuff that happened while you were dating unless it was a gross betrayal on her part.

People breakup and date others when they're teens all the time.

The other stuff, however, shows that your WW has boundary issues.

She's not acting like a typical wayward by actually being passive and not caring if you snoop. THAT is different and not something I've seen here often.

But ask her if she's willing to be totally open with you and let you see her cell phone and text messages and emails if there is nothing to hide.

You are in a good situation, believe it or not. If your WW isn't spewing venom at you you're in a good situation.

Calmly saying that nothing is going on is a good sign since waywards tend to be pretty over the top about their reactions to being spied on.

Regardless, trust does need to be established and she does need to work on setting better boundaries.

SHE can't control if men flirt with her or not. She CAN control her reaction to them doing so.

It's a fine line between being friendly and flirting in her line of work.

But it can be toed and kept in the "friendly" level. Anything beyond that can be clarified with "I'm married".

I don't know. Others can weigh in, but her reaction tells me that you may have caught a situation before it got out of hand, which is good and puts you in a very lucky spot.

She will let me look at her e-mails, I can pick up her phone any time I want, and she leaves her myspace and e-mails open on the computer a lot when she goes to work. I cant monitor her cell all the time. I don't feel she is a wayward. I feel she got caught up in something physical.

This guy she was with is much younger than us. He is like 22 or 23 at the most. She told me he started flirting with her a couple months back. She has been feeling insecure about her body after the kids. I cant understand why she is still very slim, and looks great. People tell her all the time. Thats no secret because here we are. But she says its just the way she sees herself, there are things she does not like about her body.

This is what it looks like to me. I think he started flirting with her, she was/is attracted to him, one thing lead to another and here we are. She never has been good at sharing her feelings, so I think she loves me so much and she does not want to hurt me that she will never tell me.

Just what it looks like from my point of view.

So you think something happened?

Ok. So it may not be some emotionally connected affair.

BUT, she shows herself to have bad boundaries.

About a year before my exww cheated on me she met with a guy who worked on the base.

It was innocent in her eyes. Younger guy who she would talk to, text, and get together from time to time to play video games with.

I found out about it and was not at all happy. She said it was all in my head and that I was stupid to think anything could happen with him because he was much younger.

But I knew about boundaries and I knew that he likely liked her and that's why he was constantly communicating.

So we had many arguments about this. She finally gave in, to my knowledge.

Then there was the desire to go dancing on the base with guys from the Guard who were rotating through the base to backfill for our cops.

I didn't think much of it at first. I came home exhausted after a flight one night to find her all dressed up and looking nice. That was my first caution flag. I didn't like that she was dressing up like that to go out without me to go "dancing". Dressing like that is simply a way to draw attention.

So I started going with her.

Did she cheat these times? No. But she was very clearly showing her poor boundaries. Married women don't rendezvous with other men to play video games without the knowledge of their husbands.

They don't go to clubs without their husbands.

They don't have myspace pages that their husbands don't have access to.

They don't have secret friends.

So where am I today?

She went out with 5 different guys (that I know of, there may be more) while I was deployed. I wasn't gone for long. 2 months.

One of those times got physical, that i know of and have confirmed. I suspect there were others that were at least a kiss.

All this while married to me.

But the difference is that I had 3 kids when she did all of this.

Had she done this stuff without kids in the picture I would have dropped her like a hot potato.

So now you find yourself in a situation where your wife clearly crossed the line.

The fact that she's remorseful is good.

Perhaps she'll agree to counseling with SH.

She needs to learn how to be married and you have areas to improve as well. We all do.

But her biggest task is to learn boundaries.

"So you think something happened?"


Yes I do. I mean there is just something in my gut telling me that its not all innocent. Cant be, If she did not have a affair then all the text were from her and not her friend etc. I am willing to bet that it was all her.

The biggest reason I am still hear is because of the kids. My feeling is if it happened once whose to say it wont keep happening.

YOu could talk to OM.

I did it and that's how I got the truth.

I approached him calmly, let him know I wasn't going to freak out or anything, and he fessed up about the things they did.

My situation was slightly different, however, since she had told these men that we were in the process of divorcing or that she WAS divorced, which wasn't truse.

It's a judgement call.

Or you could take the calm approach with her and tell her that you will be undable to heal from this until you know the entire truth and that your gut tells you you're not getting it. It also doesn't make sense in light of the text messages you found that things were innocent or that nothing happened.

I would emphasize that if she tells you the truth that you're willing to forgive and save your marriage regardless of what the truth is.

But that always wondering will take its toll on your marriage.

If she wants to save the marriage, then it has to be on your terms, which basically boils down to following MB.

You know the more I think about it the more I think I need to talk to the OM. I dont know if he will talk to me or just how to find him but I am sure I could pull it off. The las time we spok we would not get out of his car because he could see I was wanting to get at him.

I can talk to him calm, its just that he is a 22 or 23 year old kid. He is known as beeing a dog at the restaurant who flirts with all the good looking girls. I just dont know if he will level with me. Its worth a shot and probly my best chance of getting the truth.

As far as the calm approch with my wife, I have done that a few times. I have told her just what you said "I cant heal if I dont know the real truth". Her answer is always the same.

"Nothing happened" and "I cant tell you something happened if nothing did happend".

At this point I agree I should talk to the OM if I can get him in a situation to sit down with me.

I called him. I think that makes him feel a little safer. Hard to look another man in the eyes and tell him you did his wife.

I just wanted to tell everyone thank you for all the advise, replies, and comments all have left on this topic. It has been a roller coaster ride from day one and continues to be. My family has a long road ahead of us. It just feels good to talk to others about my story and hear theirs.

I know that the situation I have put before you does not look good at all, and makes my wife look like a lie, cheat and horrible person. She is not bad person, she has made some bad choices and has a long way to go before she has my trust again, but she does love me and our family.

I really feel we have a marriage worth fighting for. I will give it my all for many reasons most of all my four beautiful children. She has been through a lot in her child hood. She has never seen a good example of a healthily relationship. <y parents have been married for 43 years and I forget that not all of us are so lucky to come from a background like that.

Although she may have had an affair that alone is not enough for me to walk away. Time will tell what holds in store for our relationship. At this point she is willing to fight for it and I will do the same. Will this fight be for nothing only time will tell.

Once again thanks for all your comments and keep them coming if you have anything else to add.