My wife and I have been married 12 years. We have a 9 year old daughter. Figured it would be cathartic to put this here, since I really can't talk to anybody I know about it other than my wife.

For I'm not even sure how long now; a year or more at least, our relationship has been deteriorating. We've been arguing more, she gets mad at the drop of a hat, I get mad because she gets mad...just a lot of unhappy times. Over the past couple of months, it had finally been getting to the point where I was ready to confront her and talk about how we could make things better.

Last week, she was suddenly laid off from her job. Her division was completely eliminated, and she was unceremoniously escorted out the door. I know that's typical in corporations; but this was a smaller business. Plus, she got along well with most of her co-workers, and especially the owners of the company. She talked about her work friends often.

I found out about her losing the job when an email bounced back twice before she had a chance to call me. Two days later, I was setting up an email account at her part time job to forward automatically to her Gmail so she didn't have to check multiple places (I was doing this with her blessing...I'm an IT guy; I set up all her accounts and she knows I know all her passwords). When I was about to close her Gmail, there was an undeliverable notification from her former company....since that was how I found out, I clicked on it to see who else from her work may have gotten let go. Inside was the body of the attempted message; it turned out it was from my wife to the owner she was most friendly with. It started asking for a recommendation, and then she apoligized for her reaction when she was let go (she threw keys on the floor as she was walking out the door). She then let him know that she was upset because she thought they knew that they could trust her and not let her go the way that they did; rather give her some notice (I was proud of her for this; we had spoken that morning about how she should let them know they didn't do the right thing).

Then, hit by a truck. The final paragraph talked about how she especially thought he trusted her, and how she has feelings for him that she never told him about because she was married and he was the boss...but now he wasn't the boss anymore. She let on that 2 other people knew, and they both told her NOT to tell...but it made her feel better to put it out there.

I closed the email, and saw a new draft message being composed at that very second...she was trying to re-send it with the correct email address! I called home, hoping that she would see my number and reconsider what she was about to do. She did not; she sent it to the correct address and deleted all history (or so she thought; I am, after all, an IT guy).

I spent the next couple of days thinking about how I would confront her with my knowledge. I was angry, I was humiliated, I was sad...I ran the gamut. And in those couple of days, I tried to take an introspective look at what could have happened...and I realized that while things had been going south for us, I had been pretty emotionally unavailable. What makes it even worse is that in April we had a miscarriage (we only have the one child; and stopped trying for a 2nd 3 or 4 years ago. Very much an 'oops' pregnancy for my 42 year old wife, but she was very excited about it), and while I was very supportive and tried to be very attentive in the couple of weeks following...evidently I did not recognize the fact that it was still really bothering her (and in my defense, she never attempted to talk to me about it), so she let it fester.

So on Friday, I decided I'd like to try to spend a nice weekend without any fighting...we went out a couple of times; did some family stuff and did some stuff with just her and I...and it was good. But I didn't think it was fair to have this ace up my sleeve...so yesterday I told her everything I knew and how I found out, and that I wanted to talk about it.

She asked why I didn't say anything right away; and I responded because I wanted to TALK about it, not fight about it. Without me bringing it up, she says a big factor was the fact that he seemed more attentive for longer than I was in the time after the miscarriage.

The only thing she doesn't know that I know is that I saw his response...he basically said "I'm sorry you misinterpreted my actions, but we are both in committed relationships"...so in addition to job loss, lingering depression over the miscarriage, and her husband finding out that she has feelings for another man...she's probably also dealing with being rejected by the other man...

I am now dedicated to making every effort to be a better husband so she doesn't feel she needs to find emotional fulfillment elsewhere (all this time, through good and bad, making love has never been an issue with us). I'm fairly certain that if she continued to work there, if given the opportunity she would have cheated...but she won't be seeing this guy around, never talked on the phone with him in the past anyway...so I'm hoping once he his out of her mind, her and I are in a better place and she won't feel the need to stray anymore.

Anyway, I just wanted to get it off my chest and ask for advice, pointers, tips, what have you. I can't exactly talk to friends/relatives about this without her being humiliated; she at least has 2 people she can talk to about it.

It seems to me the biggest issues are easing her mind when it comes to me using this against her in some way (like dragging it out in an argument), and how do I deal with her getting him out of her mind...or do I just let her run that course on her own?

Click on the links at the top for the Basic Concepts, Q&A Columns, and Articles, and print out and complete the EN and LB questionnaires. Work on spending 15 hours UA together and follow the concepts. Affair proof your marriage and follow the MB principles.

I would send the OM an email telling him you saw the emails and appreciate him doing the right thing, and would also appreciate that he not communicate or respond to your wife in the future because of said stated feelings.