I'm in desperate need of advice. I've been dealing with this issue for the past 4 years.

Basically my wife, in my opinion, is having inappropriate relationships with other men. Sexual and Flirtatious in nature. I've caught her telling other guys she wants to have sex with them, meet up with them, etc. She has never cheated on me but her conversations are driving me nuts. She is allowed to speak with other men like this but if I were to do this with a female friend (I wouldn't) she would castrate me.

I'm currently in Afghanistan and due to history with this issue I decided to check in on her to see if she still had the habit (despite her saying she didn't).

She plays an online game called World of Warcraft. Her conversations in this game, and out, to these guys almost divorced us two years ago. I told her it was me or the game and she chose me. We agreed she would never play ever again. Well, 1 week into my deployment she told me she was playing again whether I like it or not. I told her I was not okay with her playing, that she was breaking our agreement and she blew me off saying I wasn't trusting her (despite me having a legit reason) and that I was being controlling.

These are some quick excerpts from yesterday (I can only see her side of the conversation). I have logs for the past 8 days or so and back home (not here sorry) I have a bunch of previous logs from when she was really over the top with this. PLEASE HELP!!


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(this is her response after he said hi to her on facebook)

use your imagination on this one...

Sigh...

Unfair that she can't spend time with this guy? Getting shafted?

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Please help, this is just ONE day!

Welcome to MB, Chris, and Happy New Year.

I don't think that there's any question that your wife is stepping over the line (in reference to your thread title).

Your wife's behaviour is not conducive to creating a happy, romantic marriage. She seems not to care about basic fidelity, nor to want to take your feelings of unhappiness into account. I am puzzled as to why she is married.

You say that you have been dealing with this for 4 years. How long have you been legally married? How old are you both? Do you have kids, and what are their ages? For how much of your marriage have you been deployed?

There are many articles and thread that you should read from this site. I recommend that you begin with Dr Harley's Basic Concepts, in which he gives his guidelines for a healthy marriage. The Policy of Joint Agreement is described by Dr Harley as

teach(ing) couples to become thoughtful and sensitive to each other's feelings when they don't feel like it. If both spouses follow this policy, they avoid all the Love Busters because they won't mutually agree to anything that hurts one of them. Demands, disrespect and anger are eliminated because even negotiating strategy must be mutually agreed to, and no one likes to be the recipient of abuse. Annoying behavior is eliminated because if one spouse finds any behavior or activity of the other annoying, according to the policy, it cannot be done. It even eliminates dishonesty, because a lie is certainly not something that you would agree to enthusiastically. It helps plug up the holes in the sieve of the Love Bank that cause most couples to drift into loveless incompatibility.

Your wife has no concept of POJA and she needs to be persuaded of its merits. The article Four Guidelines to Successful Negotiation tells you how to raise the issue of your wife's thoughtless, dangerous behaviour without causing her to withdraw from you.

There is a separate forum here called Military Marriages. if you read some of the threads there, like RIF's threads, you will see that Dr Harley identifies a particular problem with deployment, to which he has not found a satisfactory answer.

I recommend that you read as much as possible for now, and await further responses from posters here when the board wakes up.

Thanks for the response, I will read up.

But to answer your questions:

We're both 26. Married for 6 years, together for 12. We have 3 kids ages 5, 3, and 2. This is my first deployment so it's definitely not the originating cause of this issue.

Sorry you are here but welcome.

First, you may want to press "Notify" and have this moved to SAA.

Some questions:
All this chatting is with one OM, is that right? Do you have his name and do you know if he is married? Do you have access to her cell records, can you see if they have been calling and texting?

Hang in there.

Not sure what an OM is, but no it's not all to one guy. But it is the same guys from the previous issue I mentioned. They are not married, most are single or have girlfriends. I have checked the cells and since I don't know their numbers I can't see who she's calling. I just get numbers. Reverse lookups cost money that I can't discreetly spend. However, to my knowledge, she has not been calling or texting them.

An OM = "other man". We also use OM1, OM2, etc to denote "other man #1" and "other man #2" in chronological order for wayward wives (WW) who have more than one affair. Wayward husbands (WH) have other women (OW).

Please put your ages, length of time married, and kids with their ages in your signature block. It will save the veteran posters time when looking at your thread.

Please click on 'notify' and ask the moderators to move your thread to the SAA (surviving an affair) forum.

Sorry that you're here but you're in the right place.

I already notified the mods to move the thread. I added my info to my signature block, if I need to change the lingo let me know.

Uhhh I think your WW is 26 not 16

Might also want to explicitly state in your sig block that she's the WW, that will also help the vets.

You'll see other examples of sig blocks as you read more.

Updated...

Thought I'd add one more days worth...







Referring to my last name:

Not talking to me...

Hi Chris, sorry you have to be here. WOW had a hand in destroying my marriage, too. It became a huge source of female attention (along with others) for WXH, to the point where he refused to play the game with me even though I tried. Then my character mysteriously turned up BANNED shortly after and could not be played any more. Coincidence?

The point is: Don't let anyone tell you you're making too much of this because it's just a stupid game, etc. It used to be Everquest and now it's World of Warcraft serving as hookups for cheaters. Sorry this happened to you.

WOW also was the result of my infedelity, your wife will not change unless the fog lifts and the only way to do that is to expose these affairs telling everyone family/friends/neighbors/children/etc... even the om girlfriends. You need supoort from family and friends.

Your marriage can and will survive her anger but it will not survive if she keeps flirting with men.

Although we sometimes miss playing the game but we both know that it would be a HUGE trigger for wheels and so there for wow is not aloud in our home.

You are doing the right thing, and exposure is a must because it will often stop the EA before it becomes a PA. I had an Army friend that returned from deployment only to find out his wife was on a site called Ashley Madison which promotes affairs with other married people. He had to do alot of homework, but he was able to expose all of his wife's EA/PA and she stopped it immediately. He and his wife have gone to MC, and have been able to rebuild their marriage, but he said none of this would have been possible without him snooping and exposing the affairs. So, having heard his story I am beginning to believe in the Power that Exposure has to end PA. I hope this helps.

I just want to point out to you guys mentioning exposing her will solve this issue: I exposed her before and even though SHE was the one in the wrong, she hit ME with saying I had trust issues and was being controlling... even though I wasn't the on straying. I ended up telling her mom and dad, showing them the logs. She of course said she was just kidding, messing around, etc so her parents blew it off. She didn't quit easily the first time, it took 2 years of collecting evidence to throw in her face to get her to quit and I had to basically threaten her with divorce.

When she started playing again I was against it at first (well I still am technically). She said I didn't trust her and was being controlling. That by not giving her another chance I was automatically saying she would do these things again. Well, I eventually gave in. She promised me a lot of things would never happen again, that she made some mistakes (really?), and day by day the promises are slowly breaking (casual -> Hardcore, not-raiding -> Raiding, friendly talk -> Sexual/flirty talk, etc).

This time around the flirting isn't nearly as bad but it's still the fact that she's A) doing it and B) made a huge deal about me trusting her and has lied to me about it. Exposing her this time around won't work unless I have a ton of evidence and it'll likely end in divorce because of "trust issues" (even though she is the one straying).

Anyways, she's not physically cheatin, but she is emotionally/socially cheating and I just don't feel like exposure will work the same way this time around.

Chris, they ALL say the stuff your WW has said to you. They ALL turn it right back on you and try to make you feel guilty with "you don't trust me!" They are ALL talking right out of the same script.

And they ALL Lie, Lie, Lie, Lie and Lie some more.

You can't let this get to you. If you refuse to expose her behaviour to anyone who might bring pressure on her, then you may as well give up now and just accept the fact that you have a part-time wife who only stays with you as long as you don't interfere with her time spent with other men.

Appeasing her will not work. You might think she would be grateful enough to you for not exposing that she'll just stop this behaviour and never ever do it again.

You couldn't be more wrong. She is bullying you into backing off because that has always worked before and then she can enjoy her cheating in peace. As long as you let her bully and threaten you into being a doormat, THAT is what she will continue to do.

I wish I could be more encouraging, but we have seen this countless times with both WH and WW - and it's always the same thing.

Oh trust me I want to expose her and confront her, especially since she lied to me about this whole thing just so she could play again, I just want more evidence before I do. Thanks for all the information so far!

I have some questions:

1) How long is your deployment going to be?

2) Do the logs show how much time she is spending in play?

3) How much of family resources are being used to pay for her to play the game?

You could always have the net cut off.

A year
Sort of, I get a time stamp each time she swaps windows, so if she's ingame for hours I only get 1 time stamp.
It's $15/mo before expansions, transfers, etc

I do think she is crossing a line and she is crossing it when she is in a very vulnerable situation. Deployments are a time when extraordinary precautions are especially important.

Considering the ages of your children, I would try and find out how much time she is devoting to the game.

I would imagine the internet is your primary source of communication with her, but if she is paying for the service with a CC, you could contact them about refusing to accept charges for the game play.

Cutting off her game is a sure fire way to ensure I don't get to talk to my kids. If I piss her off that's how she would punish me. Plus, I don't want to give her any ideas because while I'm here I'm defenseless. If I approach her about this and she explodes then she has access to everything I own, finances, etc. I think collecting evidence, at this point, is my only option.