Mr. Amazed-

You need to decide what it is that you want. If you wish to save your marriage, you must be prepared to do what is necessary. I know first hand how confusing and difficult the first few days are.

It's time to suck it up and be strong. What good is her income going to do if you are not together to use it?

This is a life and death fight....for your marriage. Do what is necessary. Make the time to read the links. Stay calm, and don't act on emotions. Read. Learn. Develop and share your plan here. These great people will help you through it. Trust.

If it's not a workplace affair, then, don't worry about it.


But you have access to one at home. Look, she has to have a way to contact him after work and on weekends. Put the keylogger on all of your computers (ipads, too). Look for a secret phone--check her car.


Phones get lost and accidentally stepped on. Get my drift? Pretend to be all happy that you bought her a newer and better phone with a nice little program previously installed on it. Blackberry models, I hear, support voice recording by spyware.

That would apply, really, to any internet-ready device that you cannot bug. Just take a drive, toss it out the window and look dumber than dirt when questioned as to the item's location.

I'm the one who indirectly brought up workplace exposure. My point is that the exposure, once performed, often takes on a life and impact of its own.

It may have effects that are not anticipated, but should be recognized as possible.

You make a good point. If there are people there that may be some influence, then broadening it to include the workplace would make sense.

Carpet bombing during exposure would surely give the most bang for the buck.

If it's not a workplace affair, then no need to expose there. Expose where it will be effective to do so.

Exposure will pi$$ her off something fierce. But part of the reason the affair thrives is because it is going on in secret.

I would make a few things clear to her.

Let her know that you won't tolerate this for long. It must end now in order for you to move on in your marriage. You must also make it clear that if this leads to divorce that you won't make it either pleasant or nice and that you will make adultery an issue and go for full custody.

This is a wake up for the WW. It lets her know that her fantasy of a friendly divorce is just that: a fantasy.

Now, we want to save your marriage. So tell her this stuff AFTER you've laid out the preferred path. The preferred path is one where she agrees to never speak to OM again. She must confess the entire affair to you (which has clearly gone physical).

Find out if your state has alienation of affection. Sue the other man for it.

Expose to his friends and family on FB. Let them know he's having an affair with your wife.

The objective of exposure is to bring it out of the shadows, get support from family and friends to end it, an kill it.

BUT UNDERSTAND: THERE IS NO HOPE FOR YOUR MARRIAGE WITHOUT EXPOSURE.

You've been living with the cycle of false recoveries, which come because the affair goes dormant.

Let her see that you are a man who won't take this lying down and will man up to end it.

I have a feeling that your WW is salvageable. Many WW's on this forum are long gone and so deep into the affair that the BH has a giant mountain to climb.

But understand that the only thing that will save you is action. Talking to her is useless. You don't ask drug addicts to stop. You take away their drugs and crack pipe and put eyeballs on her so she can't go out and get more.

That's your only hope my friend.

Finally, get checked for STDs. You've been exposed.

ITA. Focus exposure on the targets that will be most likely to apply pressure on the infidels to end the affair.

Caveat: Even if they don't work together, one or both of them may work for a company that promotes itself as a morally-based organization with moral employees. Or one of them may work for a religious organization that would be against adultery. Those employers would be good exposure targets.

To clarify - it is not workplace related.

Had a long calm talk last nite with WW. I told her that I am a worthy man and I will not make this sound like my fault for her choice. She needs to take responsibility for her response. I would not stand by and watch my family be torn apart - that I will fight for it.

She has repeatedly claimed she has not seen him since June. And never wants to ever again. I have seen some of the msgs to her and he sounds like a real [censored] - really demanding and crass. Sounds like a poacher type (seeking out married women - a friend of ours revealed he did the same to her when she was married about 4 yr ago) She has shown me her attempts at no contact via blocked # and deleted chat account. I probably emptied the LB by saying that was nice to see but there are alternate methods and other accounts could be opened. It would be very hard for her (due to picking up little kids and being at home with them, etc) to have met up anytime recently. She has even sent pics with them together so I know she is not with him.

She even revealed to me about a month ago that she sent a FB msg to his current girlfriend to tell her what a sleaze he was and how he continued to harass even after the NC attempt in June. Yes I know she is deflecting blame - but this guy was quite brazen when it came to msg me. Too bad I deleted them GRRR. I couldn't stand seeing them in my account - the pain I felt was too much as I was trying to recover with her. I believe that is what prompted his calling her again briefly and she admitted it to me without me prompting or being suspicious of this activity.

I know I have read on here that you can never trust what they say. I want to be a trusting person and that is my weakness. I'd like to think I know when she is lying - last nite she just plainly said - "I do not want him anymore and I dont know if I want you anymore either, that is why I am so confused".

She does not use the laptop at home ever. It is always her phone or laptop at work (I have not access to it as it stays at work) At this point she knows I am on to her and handing her a new phone would definitely be suspicious activity in her view. The one she has just doesn't leave her side and she is always the one to take care of the phone stuff. It would be very un-stealthy.

Once again, I asked if they had sex. She said no again. It was only talking with him - and "thats what you don't get". I told her I wanna know the truth as I don't want any STD and would like to know if I should be checked out for my own safety/health. She said no. Asked why they never did "because of you" was her answer. BTW her previous husband was a WH with a physical affair and she always said she'd never want that pain to be inflicted on whomever she was with. Could this be an emotional affair only? I know since they have met in person the likelihood is high that it got physical. However - even the OM messages never said "I am banging her." Only "seeing her" "meeting her". I know he was trying to drive a wedge between us so he could have her alone to himself but he never actually plainly said they were screwing. Wouldn't he have plainly said that to me if they had? I would have to believe that would be the nuke in his arsenal if he really wanted us broke up.

So if there is the chance that she really doesn't want him anymore (as she has recently demonstrated showing blocked # and deleted chat acct) and I go blow up her world with exposure - and it truly was an Emotional Affair, I believe I am taking a huge risk at this point if she is in fact genuine. I know you think I am a big pu$$y at this point, but in small towns, this has ramifications down the road for the rest of our lives. (I know - do you want to save marriage?)

My, how honorable of them. I'm sorry, MrAmazed, but

1. They are waywards and waywards lie.
2. They had opportunity.
3. He didn't admit they were having sex because he was afraid that might push you over the edge and you'd come after him with a gun.
4. If he was trying to drive a wedge between the two of you so he could have her to himself, he's already 'had her'.

You are so desperate to believe a couple of liars that you're willing to buy anything they sell you.

Ask your WW to sit for a polygraph and see what she says.

What you could do is take her phone in the middle of the night and install spyware. Some spyware, such as eblaster for phones and flexispy, has a built in GPS, along with a log of all calls and a copy of all texts.

You should also get access to all the phone bills to see who she is talking to.

The problem here is that your marriage won't recover unless there is a plan to affair proof your marriage and commit to a program of recovery. That begins with complete honesty, complete transparency and an end to all contact with the OW. It means that your wife stops behaving inappropriately with other men and changes her life in a way that this can't happen again.

The first step is get the truth about her affair. I don't believe you have the full truth. What I would do is schedule a polygraph and tell her 2 days ahead of time. She obviously won't object unless she has something to hide. A polygraph would only validate that she is telling the truth and that is what she wants, right? When you tell her about the polygraph appointment, hand her a list of questions and tell her she has one last chance to come clean before the test, but if she fails the test it is all over.

Watch her start singing like a canary. You will get the truth, likely. But that is your starting point. You have to get the truth if you ever want to hope to save your marriage.

Right now you are in a crippled version of your pre-affair marriage and are more vulnerable to an affair now. Marriages do not recover by magic and this won't recover unless certain things happen.

So she can still support our kids even if we end up divorced. I don't think sabotaging her career and income source is sound advice when I have 4 other souls. They need to be supported clothed/fed/educated etc etc. That would be negligent to them.

The issue I see here is that you have set the bar so low that your wife is just living down to your expectations. Here is my canned discussion I recommend you have with her:

p.s. since she hooked up with the OM on facebook, I would insist she delete it. It would be crazy to keep a facebook account since that is how her affair began.

Now wait a minute. If she got fired from her job, it would be because of her affair not because of you. So how would you be sabatoging her career if she got fired because of her affair? You did not cause her affair.

Personally I don't think you need to expose at work unless they have a morals clause but your logic is faulty on this one.

Does she have a job where they would fire her if they knew she was committing adultery?

1. Her phone is a palm. Nothing is currently available for spyware unless someone here knows something I don't.

2. Phone bills are electronic only and I need access from Phone Co to do that. She is notified by Phone Co via text msg once access codes are changed (assuming I can guess her access code again). I did this once already and some how she changed it back even though I used a PIN she would not have guessed (an old address from childhood) she was furious as you may imagine. HA

3. Polygraph? when/where? We are 4hrs from any metro area. How would that work - she'd simply say I'm nutz and I won't drive there to do it.

Only thing I could do is put GPS device in car.

I have asked her. She basically said no. BTW she is on it constantly - she is addicted to it I truly believe. I asked about the possibility of sharing an acct as my pastor advised. A cold maybe was the answer.

In fact I saw msgs on there (her phone late at nite) to other FB friends of hers, some old acquaintance in another country and another guy 1200mi away that were inappropriate too. One said "you like 'poking' me a lot, we don't you ever chat on FB" I found his # in my old text logs I downloaded back in April. 30 msgs in about 10 days with some pic/mms messages. The other guy was a friend of hers from college who was friends with her ExH. He was going on about how sexy he thought she was and that she was still HOT and if he could go back in time etc...

I have found emails she sent of herself in a beach dress to an unknown address too. She claims she didn't and if they were they were by "mistake" Funny, I say "how did your phone know that they were taken at the DD b-day party?" which was in the body of the email... I really wonder if she has a fascination of being wanted... Its truly crazy - my counselor said he has seen a lot of that in women her age of late. Like an early midlife crisis. Saddens me she harbors these deep slimy thoughts.

I would check with Brickhouse Security and flexispy and see what they have.


Thats fine if you have to change the password. It should give you enough time to download and print all the bills. And why else would she change the password unless she has something to hide.


I would find one locally.

If you would place more emphasis on finding ways to protect your marriage instead of finding endless excuses about why you CAN'T/WON'T you might be able to save your marriage. But we can't help you if you refuse to help yourself.

It is going to take a much more proactive approach if you expect to turn this around. As you have learned, complacence is not helping your marriage. It won't fix itself on its own. You have to actually step up here and do some work. [other than finding an excuse to not do anything]

What should sadden you more is that she is no longer in love with you BECAUSE of her independent behaviors, her affair, her Facebook, and her callus disregard for your feelings.

Your WW is A-OK with hurting you and making you miserable.

Now, what is your plan?
Quit monkeying around.

Personally I believe her personal life and her professional life should be separate unless it was done at work which it wasn't. This has no affect on her competence and it would be unfair to have the possibility of having her fired. Sorry - don't agree at all on that one


NO they wouldn't I believe.

Deleting facebook is an extraordinary precaution that is not negotiable. The most glaring problem I see in your marriage is that you have set the bar so LOW that she is just living down to your expectations. There is no excuse to tolerate her sneaky behavior. It is obvious to any outside observer that she is still having an affair. People who have nothing to hide, don't hide.

Yet you tolerate that. And have lots of excuses why it can't be changed.

Mel: Here is what I suggest. (plan)

You: Yes, but .....

Mel: This is why this has worked for countless others (explanation)

You: Yes, but .....

Mel: What we have seen time and time again is (examples) and that is why (plan) works.

You: Yes, but, that might make WW mad. Yes but, that won't work in my case. Yes but, we live in Timbuktu. Yes but, it's Wednesday and I never do things like that on Wednesday. Yes but, I wish she loved me.