My wife is insisting on going to New York with a "friend" to see the Yankees in the playoffs. This "friend" already went with her to New York in June, this despite my repeated objections and a serious argument. She claims she is not in love with him, but I told her this is an emotional affair and that she is in a fog.

We've been married 14 years and have 2 kids in middle school. She says she has been unhappy since her mom and brother died 5 & 6 years ago. She never sought counseling at that time. She has become obsessed with baseball, spending most of the day watching various games. She meet two "friends" during Spring Training. She confessed to one of them that she was not happy. I was not aware of how unhappy she was until a few months ago. I called her a b**** 5 months ago since she was talking about her new "friends" and moping around the house, complaining about little things. I've given her a very comfortable lifestyle, but now I know that is not enough. I've even admitted that she has these "friends" because I did not meet her emotional needs. She won't forgive me for the insult, despite my repeated apologies. She remembers all the times I've disappointed her these last few years. She says she is willing to file for divorce in order to fly back to New York with this "friend".

She refuses counseling, either individual or marital. I've been seeing a therapist for the past two months. Yesterday she gave me the name of a family law attorney. She says she can't love me anymore and never wants to have sex with me again. I'm about to give up.

I'm so sorry you're here Tuc. But you've come to a good place to try to save your marraige, if you choose to do so. Do not give up~ you're previous efforts to pull your WAYWARD wife away from her lover were fruitless because you used the same ineffective tools we all do before we discover MB (like begging, pleading, name calling, increasing efforts, reasoning with them, etc). The methods you will learn here are based on thousands of success stories and have been developed by Dr. Willard Harley. *And by success I mean you may not actually be able to save your marriage, my friend, that is the cold hard reality. However, if you apply the principles of what you read here and try your best to put into effect the things that people tell you here, you will come away a better man.

For now, read as much as you can from this site. Try some threads in the Surviving an Affair Board, pick a few and just go through them. Start with a thread by Scotland for Newbies (do a little search - you'll find it). You'll find that at the very least you are not alone. Not by a long shot. And your WW (wayward wife) is behaving in predictable patterns that all cheating spouses use.

Read some articles - "Why Women Leave Men" and some like that - the "Anatomy of An Affair" is another one, I think.

Try to snag a copy of the book "Surviving An Affair" by Dr. Harley ASAP.

Ask the moderators to move your thread to the Surviving the Affairs Board. You will get more responses there; however, you must hang in there for now, all the boards slow down over the weekend. The very knowledgeable folks will be around to help soon.

Take a deep breath Doc, and don't do anything rash. Read and prepare yourself with as much information as possible. You're wife has become wayward, and with her choices she has put you on a new path in your life; you didn't ask for it, you did nothing to deserve it (no one deserves the type of pain she's inflicted upon you. No one).

Now, the action that you MAY HAVE to engage in (sooner rather than later) would be an Exposure. Depending on when your WW's pleasure cruise is planned, I would think Exposing her affair would be an effective way of stopping the trip. You'll get help with this on the SAA board. For now, understand exposing the affair is not a vindictive evil act meant to tarnish your wife's reputation ~ she's already done that just fine on her own. You'll be attempting to elicit ASSISTANCE from your trusted friends (and hers) to try to influence her from making the most terrible decision in her life.

Don't try to teach her anything or lead her here. She isn't going to listen to a word you say until her affair is over anyway. And good heavens don't listen to a word she says either, she will lie to the ends of the earth to protect her nasty secret life.

Okay, TD, that's what I can give you for now. Please know that you will be okay. You will. It won't be easy and it will take time and effort. But you and your two beautiful kids will be okay.

~optimism

tucdoc, welcome to MB! Please hit Notify and ask the mods to move your thread to the Surviving an Affair forum, Those folks have been where you're been and come out the other side. have you read the Surviving an Affair articles? What's your plan to rescue your marriage? Do you really want to give up, or do you want to shake this up as best you can?

Yep, your wife is saying and doing everything a wayward says and does when they're having an affair.

Find out as much as you can about her 'friend' (AFFAIR partner) and then read up on exposing the affair.

Sorry you're here- give little thought to what she's saying right now because you're right, she's in a fog and she's saying things that make no sense and aren't the truth. Time for you to read up here on MB as much as possible and get to work if you want to save your marriage.

moved to SAA at poster's request.

tucdoc, I have no doubt that your wife is having an affair.
If you want to save this marriage, I would find out exactly what she is doing and with him. Dont' ask her and don't let on that you suspect anything. Just come back here when you get the goods and we will help you develop a strategy to kill the affair and save your marriage.

Can you hire a PI?

She has been very open about going to baseball games with him, because she says they are "just friends". I met the guy months ago, and didn't think much and I didn't want to be controlling (I've been accused of that before). But now she has gone to several games with him, including out of state. I told her to stop, she's refused because they are "just friends". I sent him a single sentence message on his Facebook page, politely asking to meet with him in person in the next few days. She was furious, as she got a long text from him saying he is too busy to meet with me and that he doesn't want to get involved in the marriage. I told her he IS involved with the marriage and that she is in a fog if she doesn't realize this. Since he works in the entertainment industry, I told her that he is a player and that he is not as wholesome as she might think if he is successful in the industry.

tucdoc, the first step is to get the proof the affair. THEN come back here and we can help you with next steps. Put a keylogger on her computer, tap her cellphone, put a voice activated recorder in places you think she is speaking to him.

In the meantime, I would make plans to go to the game with them. Since he is just a "friend" you can all be friends together, right!?

I would also keep up the pressure on the OM and demand that he meet with you. Don't let up! Send him another message, call his house, go to house. Cause as much conflict as possible.

Part of the problem with reconciling with my wife is how she deals with people who cross her. She immediately cuts them off and wants nothing more to do with them. This has happened with her sister, our parish priest, the school principal and now with me. She has cut off a friend who kept texting her about wanting to talk about how the marriage was going (she had met the "friend" at a ball game and thought she was doting over him a bit too much). Her inability to forgive hurts and move forward is jeopardizing our marriage.

I admit, I was wrong to call her a b**** for complaining so much, and have apologized over and over again since. This was when she was becoming fonder of her new "friends". But, my son also told her she complains too much, which did not go over well.

You are probably not going to make it if you operate on fear. If you don't CROSS your wife and interfere with her affair, you might as get divorced now, because you are not going to make it.

ALL waywards become furious when someone interferes with their affair. They ALL threaten divorce and all manner of punishment if you interfere with their affair. But it never interferes with recovery when they are ready to come back.

And what makes them ready to come back? Killing of the affair.

tucdoc, we don't know if your marriage will make it or not, but I do know you have nothing to lose at this point. You have no marriage as it is.

So, unless you want to accept the status quo, then I would implore you to listen to those of us who have saved our marriages from affairs. Your best thinking has availed you nothing thus far.

If your wife chooses her "friendship" over her marriage, then your marriage is over anyway. There is nothing to lose.

Your best chance of saving this marriage is to kill this affair. That is the only way you are going to recover this marriage if that is possible.

I also implore you to listen to anyone that might help you break out of the patterns that have lead you to this point. For instance some of us who didn't save their marriage, but are on a road to recovery and have begun to grow in important ways due to the experience of adultery and how we've reacted to it using concepts used here.

Tuc. This is the type of mind-set that instilled in your wayward wife a very strong lack of confidence in you. She has no respect for you whatsoever and she is now to the point of bullying you and intimidating and lying to you so that she can GET HER WAY with the other man. She doesn't care about what you think and you've probably given her every reason to believe that there are no consequences for acting however she wants to, regardless of your feelings. Listen, Doc, I'm not trying to ride you - I was the same way and I'm just now waking up to the role I played in allowing my marriage to unravel; now I'm 18 days from my divorce being final.

I also happen to know all about "friendships." In the "Newsletters" forum just below this one is an article about "How Friendships destroy marriages" or something like that. I was just reading it today. It's right on. My stbxww "friendshipped" herself right into a divorce. I'm pretty sure that none of her friendships involved physical intimacy, but guess what, they still wrecked our marriage. I've read here that "friendships" can be worse than just a few romps in the hay. I also have a strong suspicion your wayward is into it on every level with this piece of filth.

Anyway, point is that you now have other considerations, my good friend. Those are for your children. How you handle this ugly, nasty, filthy, disgusting, immoral situation that your wife has thrust upon you will affect them for the rest of their lives. It will affect how they choose a mate and will have an impact on whether they too find themselves in the painful situation you are in now. Or even whether they wind up unwittingly putting their marriage partners in the same painful circumstances. I urge you to dig deep and find the strength to take this day by day and show them how a real man handles adversity.

optimism

She is refusing to stop communicating with him. She still insists he is "just a friend". If that is the case, why did he respond through my wife rather than directly to me when I wrote to him on his Facebook page? Even if he is "just" a friend, why can't she see how that relationship is hurting our marriage?

My therapist advised me to contact a lawyer as my wife is now talking about divorce. I WANT MY MARRIAGE BACK. It's just that she blames me for everything and will take no responsibility, other than admitting that she internalized many of the hurts that should have been discussed years ago. I've asked her repeatedly to live in the present and not be stuck in the past.

What MB Plan advises you to tell your WS something "repeatedly" ?

Why do you repeat things that obviously do not work?

She doesn't care. She is motivated by a selfish sense of entitlement. You OWE it to her and she DESERVES to be happy.



Talking to a lawyer about your options is a good idea. However, that doesn't mean you have to divorce.

Time to end this affair with exposure.

Look. You don't need to convince the MB forum your W is involved in some sort of affair. It is obvious, to us, that she is.

And trying to get her to admit it is futile.

They lie.
ALL of them LIE.

Are you following a MB Plan at all?

You already know the answer to this, right? He isn't talking to you because he knows his behavior is wrong and he's too cowardly to face your scrutiny. She can't see the hurt to your M because she is eyeball-deep in affair fog.

Time to expose.

My wife doesn't go to my son's school because one of the mom's has already seen how they interacted at one of the baseball games and felt it inappropriate. She sent texts asking to get together with her, but my wife is saying I put that idea into her head. There are several other mom's from the school that are ready to do an intervention. I was going to ask for their help if my wife really does file for divorce. My wife's sister also knows, as she was also at that same game, but my wife disregards her sister's opinion. My wife's good friend for the last 20 years knows also, and I even wrote on her Facebook page about what I wrote on his Facebook page. I could ask her to confront my wife.

Expose to other school Moms BEFORE your wife files for a D.


That is most likely to stop her adultery. EXPOSURE.

Are you willing to follow MB plans, or not?

If you want to save your marriage, you are going to have to do a very strategic, widespread exposure. Thats if it can be saved. That is usually enought to kill an affair.

That is why I told you to get the goods and come back here.

Do you want us to help you?