Had his affair with coworker, total cliche, "just friends", "your crazy" "I do what I do" "get over it". We just had 25 anniv. They no longer work together, and live in seperate towns. I guess I REALLY DON"T KNOW if they still have contact(phone, email), he says no. Point is I just don't trust him period. My mistake was to confront him as each thing happened, which I know now was a mistake cuz it just made him sneekier and a liar. He says he wants us to be together and happy, but he laughs at self help. His affair is the elephant in the room. I cannot get over it, if it is a forbidden topic. Help

The vets will be along soon with top notch advice, I am a newly betrayed spouse like yourself..

It sounds like he wont follow a plan for recovery and that he wont be open and honest with you about the details of the affair. BIG problem.

'he says no' when you ask him about contact? You need to verify this for yourself by snooping like a bloodhound - voice recorders, GPS in his car, keyloger on computer, spyware on his phone, private investigator if necessary.

Are you aware of plan A and plan B, have you done them?

The only thing you did wrong was confront him without evidence. You are right that doing this just causes them to get sneakier and better at hiding. The solution is to do a super job of snooping, get the evidence and THEN confront.

My suggestion would be to become a super sleuth and find out if it still going on. Hire a PI, or put a tracker on his cell phone [some have built in GPS], a VAR and GPS on his car and a keylogger on his computer. We can help you with all this.

The reason your H doesn't want to come clean is because he is probably still seeing her.

So, I would get the goods, confront him THEM, and give him an ULTIMATUM about your marriage. Go to him with a PLAN and he can either get on board or he can get out. You have nothing to lose except a future of HELL, with continued adultery if he won't agree to your plan.

We can help you with talking points, recovery plan, etc. But FIRST you must get the goods.

Who is the OW he had the affair with? Is she married and if so, does her husband know?

Put a hidden GPS on WH's vehicle.

LINK to Operation Investigate

We got rid of the cell phone, but he could have a prepaid, or use work phone. He is IT and I am not very pc savvy. He would easily find a keylogger. I have considered paying a tech to come install something, if there is even a program out there that is TRULY stealth. I don't think he is still SEEING her, but contact is possible. Or I am paranoid. His #1 rule in life has been "never admit to anything". It never mattered before (I am sure this was his 1st affair). I am 50, He is 48 and OW is 26. She actually got married during this time,tho her husband lived 4hrs away.

she still married? he sounds like a good exposure target, when you get to that point..

Our daughter thinks he is just ashamed, just wants it to go away, thinks I should decide to either get over it or get out. Whenever I bring it up (not hostile, just wanting to get a dialog) He shuts me down. He makes it out like I am causing the pain of it to myself, That my feelings are a CHOICE, that I insist on beating a dead horse. I don't think he is sorry, and I need him to be. He is in denial. I know I can get past this with him, if he would just get on board with me. I can't decide if he gets so hostile because of guilt, or if he wants to keep his secret trophy for himself. Meantime I am using MB to help me with ME.

Eblaster is an excellent keylogger that is almost impossible to detect. It is easy to install and will email you the reports to your email account. I would suggest buying it and downloading it to your computer and practicing installing it. Then disable it and copy it to a disc or a STICK and install it on his computer.

Set up an email account that he doesn't know about, through gmail or yahoo and have the reports emailed there.

You can also search his car for a secret cell phone and put a GPS and a VAR on his car.


That should be a deal breaker for you. I would spy and see what he is doing. Then you can go to him and give him an opportunity to EARN your forgiveness by coming clean and becoming radically honest. You might also make it a requirement that he pass a polygraph test.


I would contact her husband let him know about the affair. That way he can do some snooping on his end. If her H doesn't know, then your H is free to contact her and pretend like he is a "friend."

What is your evidence of an affair?

But you won't recover as long as you don't have the truth. That has to be a first step. Recovery can't happen as long as there is continued deceit. This is information about your life to which you have a RIGHT. He will have to come clean in order for you to recover. Your feelings are not a "choice" but his withholding of the truth very much is a "choice." People don't just "get over" this unless there is just compensation. And part of just compensation is telling you the truth.

Actually, ifyoubuildit, he is gaslighting you...and doing a good job of it. Most likely, he is still in contact. At the very least, he isn't willing to give up his Secret Second Life...yet.

Once you have the goods, you need to bring his affair out into the open, exposing it far and wide.

Your WH is VERY FOGGY ~ and exposure is necessary in the de-FOGGING process.

Hang in there...

Ifyoubuildit,

You are absolutely correct to not trust him. He has clearly demonstrated that he is/was untrustworthy and irresponsible as a partner. Right now he is not doing anything positive to meet your ENs, allay your concerns, rebuild your trust, become open & honest, or prove himself as a recovered former-cheater. Sorry, but this is because very likely is still involved with the OW.

You are also correct that it was a mistake to confront him little-by-little and piecemeal. All that does is drive the affair further underground with the tracks being better covered�while scapegoating and gaslighting you all along the way. If you want to save this marriage, then you have to break the affair first. And to do that you need to:

SNOOP quietly but thoroughly (hire a PI please)
GATHER evidence that is indisputable about the affair and the OW�s contacts
EXPOSE widely, on both sides, without warning, and to EVERYONE ALL AT ONCE


This is good advice except I would caution you a bit about the text I emphasized.

Confronting an active-WS (directly, privately, one-one) is generally ineffective even if you �have the goods� already in hand. In a few cases it may shame him/her into coming clean and initiating true-NC, but usually the BS is going to get nothing but some phony contrition and false promises to end it. The affair goes way deep underground�even put �on hold� for a while until the heat dies down�and then it rears its ugly head again many months later.

The reason for this is that �confronting��unlike NUCLEAR EXPOSURE�lacks and fails to bring external pressure to bear upon the adulterers. It�s this external pressure, from multiple sources, that is far more effective than private one-on-one shaming in breaking the affair relationship and maintaining the necessary NC afterwards.

Secondly, be careful using the word �ultimatum� (as in an 'instant results or else' thing). I agree that you must hold firm to your boundaries (you will not accept continued/resumed adultery and he must be in perpetual NC to keep his marriage), but realize that Plan A has a �carrot� component as well as a �stick� AND that Plan A alone is usually not successful in ending the affair and starting recovery. Usually, exposure + some �carrot� + time & patience in Plan B is required before a WS truly becomes a fWS worthy of a recovery.

All I�m saying is that confronting your WH with the evidence and an immediate ultimatum (�you have 12 hours until I file for divorce and don�t look back!�) will probably blow up in your face. Be careful how you word it, because once you say it, you must be prepared to follow through if necessary or all your credibility will be shot.

This started last april. 1st time ever in 25 yrs marriage he did not come home. Said he drank too much, slept on friends sofa. I was po'ed left in the car, and noticed long female hair( her length /color. Came home and checked caller ID (we only had a landline)he had called the sofa owner, so I called sofa owner, and the stories didn't jive.Days later we left for japan(new grandbaby, he wanted to buy souvineer/wedding gift for ow/coworker, earrings??Are you kidding? I stayed in Japan 2wks after he came home. He was mentoring her for work 1hr away, almost weekly. Within weeks he bought me a 1 way ticket to my mothers and a prepaid phone "for my trip". But the phone was ALWAYS in his pocket, texting literally behind my back and deleating EVERYTHING. I called him out on it and he got way too defensive.Just friends.I took his beloved phone before he gave it to me, he went ballistic, packed his stuff with phone in hand and moved out. Guess who he called 1sr?

Without going on and on He had a private bank account, I saw and confronted him about the hotel charge (bank mistake)The topless pic she sent to his email (doesn't mean anything). I forwarded the pic to her mother (didn't have the balls to send to husband)And he put a keylogger on our computer to get into my account and delete it. He was protecting her. Always an excuse, never a straight up admission to this day. This is what I am up against. I don't look at this as needing a confession as much as I need transparacy to move forward and trust him again.I am scared of plan B, cuz he is so stubborn.

SDCW, the confronting part is an important part of killing the affair. The WS should be confronted OFTEN, lest they get the impression that the BS does not care very much. This puts pressure on the affair. How else will the WS know you know about it? To keep silent about the affair gives the impression of complacence which gives the impression that the BS does not care very much.


It takes a mixture of BOTH, not either or.


ultimatum is the EXACT word that should be used:


ul�ti�ma�tum
   [uhl-tuh-mey-tuhm, -mah-] Show IPA

�noun, plural -tums, -ta  [-tuh] Show IPA.
1. a final, uncompromising demand or set of terms issued by a party to a dispute, the rejection of which may lead to a severance of relations or to the use of force.
2. a final proposal or statement of conditions.


THAT is exactly what she needs to tell her husband if she finds evidence of an affair.

I disgree that Plan A is not successful in ending the affair. I would guess it kills about 45-50% of the affairs in my experience on this board. About 15% of affairs end the day they are discovered, another 50% are killed with a great Plan A. The other 30-40% [not as sure on this guesstimate] usually end while in Plan B.

In her case, her H is not in recovery, so an ultimatum very much is in order here. She needs to give him very clear standards in order to consider staying in this marriage. Otherwise, she should leave the marriage.


She needs to get the evidence, confront him and then DEMAND [with ultimatums] that he end his affair. So, no that will not blow up in her face. That is HOW Marriage Builders instructs people to save their marriages.

ifyoubuildit, I would do some superspying on him for right now and see what you find. If you don't find any continued contact, which I find hard to believe, I would inform her H of the affair.

I would then focus on recovery of your marriage. See, you are in a crippled version of your pre-affair marriage which is MORE vulnerable to an affair now than it was before the affair. You are likely headed for more affairs because your marriage never recovered from this one. Your H's sneakiness, for example, has to change in order for your marriage to recover. That is not negotiable. So, once you get your snooping in place and see what he is doing I would set him down and explain to him that you want to have a romantic, loving, SAFE marriage and that you are not willing to stay in a loveless marriage.

Tell him you are willing to give him an opportunity to earn your forgiveness. In order for the marriage to recover, certain things have to happen. This is what it will take to keep you interested:

1. no more nights apart or going out without each other - create a healthy, integrated lifestyle

2. complete transparency - cell phone passwords, etc

3. no more opposite sex friendships

4. complete honesty about his affair<s> � passing a polygraph

5. commit to a program of recovery that restores the romantic love in your marriage

Tell him "this is what it will take to keep me in this marriage." Whether your marriage ends up with success or failure will depend almost entirely on his willingness and ability to make radical changes. His lifestyle must become absolutely transparent, holding nothing back. He is in no position to negotiate when it comes to extraordinary precautions, because those precautions are designed to prevent another affair and help you feel safe. He must also meet your emotional needs in a way that until now he has failed. Unless he makes a 180 degree turn in her approach to what it means to be a husband, your marriage won't recover, it will be a crippled version of your pre-affair marriage.

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by taking this approach, because if he won't do these things, you will have lost nothing except a loveless, abusive marriage.

Mel/Original Poster,

Exposure and the other elements of Plan A/B require some time to reach maximal pressure and effect. Dr. H recommends Plan A�ing for up to 6 months for BHs & at least a few weeks for BWs. Granted some affairs truly are broken immediately upon exposure but these are a small minority as you yourself admitted. Generally, it requires at least some time in Plan A (and often some in Plan B too) AFTER exposure to fully break affairs that are �break-able�.

So, yes, firm boundaries and conditions must be set and enforced by the BS upon exposure, but usually some time must be allowed as well for all this to bear full fruit. If that�s what you mean by �an ultimatum�, then we are in complete agreement. I was merely pointing out that threatening immediate divorce if the WS hasn�t fully complied by D-day + 1 does not permit the full effects to occur.

Likewise, there is no problem with the BS confronting the WS with undeniable evidence in conjunction with contemporaneous external nuclear exposure. Usually that happens almost automatically as the WS�s phone is suddenly and unexpectedly blowing up with calls from the newly-notified exposure targets (boss, affair-partner�s spouse, friends, family, etc.) and Mr./Mrs. Cheater arrives home to the BS screaming �what the heck is going on?� If the cheater isn�t (usually angrily) spewing about being out-ed, then by all means slap the PI�s dossier on his/her lap and bust them one-on-one in addition.

I was just trying to caution the OP to not �warn� her WH in advance of the exposure packets going out so he & OW couldn�t start covering their backside or intercepting messages. It is best to not let the �private confronting� precede or over-shadow the �public exposure�, that�s all.

ifyoubuiltit, please listen to Melody. I can't add a thing to what she has posted to you, except to say "Read And Do". I'm sorry you have to be here, but you've come to the right place. Read and save your marriage.

SDCW, keep in mind that plan a for a woman is only supposed to last 3-4 weeks TOPS and she is already weeks into this. Her plan a won't be long if the affair doesn't end right away. Plan a is supposed to be very short for women. And yes, Dr Harley DOES recommend DEMANDING the affair end or divorce will be the result. That is to be done right away, you don't wait.

As far as affairs ending, about 15% end upon discovery and many more end IN plan a. Hopefully that is the case here but she needs to take an aggressive approach if that is to happen.