I have been married to my wife for 4 years together for 6 years before. We have a 2yo son. Two weeks ago I was looking over our phone bill and noticed something weird. I called the number and found out it was another man. After confronting her about it she said she had been talking to him about three weeks, hours a day and multiple text. I asked her if there was anyone else and she didnt tell the whole truth until I did some more digging and found out there was another guy she had been talking to for about 10 months with a lot of texting. She swore on our sons life that there was nothing physical and they just made her feel good and made her laugh. To be honest I have not been a loving husband in the past and our homelife has not been great. I talked to both men and their storiers seem to match up. One told me he was going to tell his wife. They both said they were sorry they didnt think they were doing anything wrong until I brought it to their attention. My wife said the same thing, that they were just friends. I started the love dare book and I am also reading 5 languages of love so that I can take care of her emotional needs so that she doesnt have to go elsewhere. The trust has been broken now. I want to forgive her but I keep looking at the usage of her phone online and call numbers I dont recognize to make sure it is not another man. I need to stop that I know. She says I was pushing to hard last week when I was texting her alot and wanting to talk on the phone a lot to her b/c I have never liked talking on the phone. At one point last week she got mad and I asked her if she could have anything what would it be and she said to have her freinds back and be unhappy at home so at least one part of her day would be good. I think she said that out of anger b/c I was pushing to hard. This week I have given her a little space but have followed all the dares. I think today is day 8 about agape love and I ironed her clothes this morning and left her a I love you note in her car. She says she doesnt know what she wants but I can see a small change and I think she is coming around. We are also going to a pastor for counseling. Sorry this is so long. Any advice and prayers would be greatly appreciated!

This is the first red flag. Why would you stop it? If looking at her phone usage proved to you that she was having emotional affairs with men and your discovery saved your marriage, why would you stop? That makes no sense. What has happened here should have taught you that MORE SNOOPING is warranted, not less. It is not lack of trust that ruins marriages, but a lack of BOUNDARIES. Your wife has no boundaries and has demonstrated she will engage in risky behavior that will wreck your marriage if you don't stop her.

In order for a marriage to recover from an affair, several things must happen. The first is that the ENVIRONMENT that made the affair possible must be eliminated. So, if her affair was conducted via text, that phone must be eliminated. If the affair was conducted on the computer, then she should not be on the computer unless you are with her. See what I mean? If an alcoholic is serious about sobering up, what does he do? He stays out of the bar!!

Your wife has shown she can't be trusted under certain circumstances, so the solution is to CHANGE THOSE CIRCUMSTANCES. That is how your marriage will recover. As you can see, you are living in intense anxiety worrying about a repeat because nothing has been changed! No new guard rails have been placed. Your anxieties are very warranted, because she is a walking affair waiting to happen.

The best program for recovering a marriage after an affair is Marriage Builders. It is the only one that has a rational, effective plan. I would get the book, Surviving an Affair and start from there. In the meantime, here is an excerpt from Requirements for Recovery by Dr Harley:

Requirements for Recovery

Dan, why are you giving her "space?" What is this about?

I betcha if you installed flexipsy on her phone, you might get a big surprise, Dan. flexispy

danlan, I'm sorry for ya. I was someone's Other Man, and a year ago, I was fielding calls from her. She was another man's wife -- a social acquaintance of mine -- and we'd done some singing together (in church, if you can believe that); and we went from innocently chatting about music to chatting about other stuff, and in less than a month, it proceeded to her telling me that I made her feel good & made her laugh. And soon she started talking about shortcomings in her marriage. As it turned out, I also enjoyed the affirmation & attention I was getting from her, and even enjoyed the sense of her confiding in me, that I was "important" to her. And you can guess the rest of my sad story. (I had it posted here once, but it got lost with the recent MarriageBuilders server crash.)

But that's all by way of background, to show you why I think I'm qualified to tell you that the quote from you above is of great concern to me and that your worries do not seem off-base or unfounded.

Perhaps you have jumped in early enough to nip it in the bud. At least it was good that your wife has had enough honesty at least to admit that she was getting a thrill from talking to these guys. But if she's getting her affirmations & needs met by surreptitious conversations with other guys, then that's already an emotional affair. The love languages is a nice book, but you & your wife & your pastor have gotta get into "Surviving An Affair." (If I had my way, it'd be a prerequisite for getting a marriage license.)

If your wife's main reaction right now is being petulantly upset about being deprived of her "friends", as opposed to how rotten her actions have made you feel, then she's not where she needs to be, mentally. Your W seems to be making mistakes I made & that my OW made, and if my own experience is any guide, if left on her own, she probably won't go the necessary mile to end all contact with these guys permanently (which is what needs to happen asap), and to devote her mental energy & her actual time to working with you on better understanding each others' Emotional Needs (read about 'em on this site) and meeting those needs within your marriage, and establishing the boundaries that need to exist around a marriage & around the individuals in a marriage.

You've done the right thing in reaching out to those guys & putting them on-notice, but you shouldn't trust your marriage to their possible integrity, OR to your wife's ability to resist the lure of the thrill she was getting by chatting with them. That thrill can be very much like an addiction, and there's lots of literature to back that up.

There are lots of folks around here lots-more experienced at this stuff than I am, and they'll be along soon with better advice than I can give.

Hang in there. Prayed for ya like you asked.

P.S. -- And listen to what Mel says.

This is something you can begin working on right now. You can read about Emotional Needs (ENs) and Love Busters (LBs).

Try and figure out what your wife's top ENs are and meet them a few times every day. This can be difficult because our natural inclination is to do four our spouse what we ourselves would like done for us. For example, you might buy tickets to a football game and think it's the biggest treat in the world. But she may not really like football. She may prefer a picnic or taking a cooking course together. So start reading about ENs and start figuring out what her top ones are. Think about things the OM do for her that she particularly likes. Sounds like conversation is one. Also think about complaints she made *before* the affairs. She'll complain about everything right now - you won't even be able to brush your teeth without irritating her, so don't waste time listening to her current complaints. Rather, think back to the time six months ago when she was ranting about how you never [fill in the blank] -- and start doing it!

Filling her top ENs needs to become a habit for you, a new way of life. It's not a quick fix. It's a new lifestyle.

She probably wont' notice immediately. She might get angry. She might think you're trying to "trick" her into staying married or giving up her friendships. She might say it's too little to late. She might say thank you for making an effort. She might say nothing. DO NOT judge your success on her reaction. DO IT. Consistently. Forever. It will pay off, I promise.

Secondly look at LBs and eliminate them. They can be slippery beasts, tough to recognize. Practice, and get rid of them. Don't comment on the ones she commits; she's not herself right now. Just work on yourself. LB elimination is also a permanent lifestyle change. Commit to it.

LBs are especially important because one "teensy" "accidental" LB can undo a ton of EN filling. They are treacherous monsters so get rid of them ASAP.

Do NOT talk to your W about relationship talk right now. She's not in the frame of mind for it. She'll feel judged, accused, attacked. You want to work, right now, on making the home and marriage an attractive place for her. This will take a few weeks, so be patient. There will be plenty of time for relationship talk later. Right now she's comparing you to the OM and she will find you lacking, guaranteed. Don't sweat it. Just do your part, and be consistent, and stick it out for several weeks.

Definitely keep snooping. Do NOT tell her that you're snooping, and when you find new info (like contact is ongoing or things were physical or whatever) don't tell her how you know. You need to know what you're fighting against, and if you reveal your sources she'll just get better at hiding things.

Some folks feel dishonest about snooping. They feel it's an invasion of privacy. Privacy is different from secrets. Privacy is when you're pooping in the bathroom and you close the door. Your spouse knows what you're doing, it's no secret, but you close the door for privacy. Secrecy is when your spouse does things you don't know about. Secrets have no place in a marriage. They DO NOT belong. Period.

Thanks for the advice. I may be wrong but I want to give her the benifit of the doubt that there was nothing physical and it has ended. She knows it hurt me bad and she is a good person. I think I will hold off on the spyware until I see something strange on the usage reports.

[grabs danlan by both sides of his face, looks him directly in the eye and comments as follows]:

Dan, I was a good person, too -- until I wasn't! Devoted husband, involved dad, upstanding member of my church, decorated employee, all that. Married 16+ years, hardly ever even argued with my wife. And the woman I got into an affair with -- caring stay-at-home mom, Pampered Chef salesperson, taught music to preschoolers. We were just the nicest "good people" you could find. But in our own ways, we each got off-track and shifted our internal boundaries, even as we kept up beautiful facades outside. I had my wife almost completely bamboozled -- she barely suspected a thing, the CIA could hardly have done it better. And the one time she hinted that my being around OW made her uncomfortable, I said that there was nothing going on that she needed to worry about and promised I wouldn't be alone with my OW to practice songs any more if it made my wife uncomfortable. (How's that for packing multiple lies into a single sentence?) And she believed me -- heck, at the time, I may even have believed what I told her, as I was into fooling myself about the desires I was fighting! -- but anyway, my word was good enough for her, because I'd always been a "good man"! By that point, my OW & I had already exchanged kisses; and 3 weeks after I brushed my wife off with those reassuring lies, I found myself paying cash for a hotel room for the first time in my life; and it went on 5 more weeks after that. It seems surreal to me now (as well as to my wife), but it happened, or I wouldn't be here. Not to blame my wife at all, but sometimes both I & she wish she'd put her foot down harder on that occasion & been less inclined to give me the benefit of the doubt. Just maybe I might've stopped before hitting complete bottom, and might've caused a lot less grief for everyone affected by my sordid drama.

I can't know what's going on with your wife, and every situation has its differences. But I'm just tellin' ya like I said yesterday, that this business about (i) her surreptitious male friends making her laugh & feel good, and (ii) her main reaction being not concern over how she made you feel, but rather, concern about your horning in on her secret friendships, is a big (as Mel also told you) RED FLAG.

You can find out whether the benefit of the doubt works for you. But if I were in your shoes, I wouldn't let your honorable desire to see your W. in a good light stop you from taking steps to try to ensure that her emotional affairs are in fact over. Including going to the other guys' wives with what you already know, and making sure your W. is establishing & implementing an absolute "no contact" policy regarding them both. Because your giving her the benefit of the doubt didn't work so well at preventing her from forming emotional attachments with these other men whom she has spent LOTS of time talking to for laughs & good feelings, did it?

I'd think twice about giving her the benefit of the doubt, particularly in light of what she just told you about her desire to have her "friends" back.
Look , in all honesty, just a short time ago, you busted her cheating. She did it at least twice that you know of, so, there is a good chance, a very good chance that you know only the tip of the iceberg.
It just seems misguided to me to stop looking at this point. I think many of us have read about this dynamic a lot and in the vast majority of cases trusting a cheater at this point bits you in the butt.

Dan, you are being foolish. Giving the benefit of the doubt to an untrustworthy person is not rational and is going to jeopardize your marriage. You are playing a game of pretense that is going to harm you both. Pretending like someone is worthy of trust does not make them trustworthy, nor does it make you virtuous. It only ENABLES them to engage in wrongdoing at your expense.

If there is something going on, you will find out NOW if you snoop. If you find out now, you will have a chance to stop it before it destroys your marriage. You have a right and a need to know EVERYTHING your wife does. She does not have the right to the privacy to destroy you behind your back.

You are not doing a very good job of protecting your marriage. Putting your head in the sand is not a solution.