Man I know how you are feeling. Right now keep being that good example for your kids. Keep being a good Father. Keep God close and let him carry you. He is stronger than we are. You know what you have done is right. You will be able to say with pride you did the right thing no matter what.

GJM, please listen to me. You had already lost her. She was gone yesterday. She left to carry on her affair with the OM. You have now RUINED that plan. You have ruined any hope of their affair. You have more of a chance TODAY than you did yesterday. So, don't despair.

Have you been able to give the OMW the evidence you have of the affair so the OM cannot deny it? What does the OMW know about the affair?

Please pull yourself together, my friend. You have a better chance today of saving your marriage than you did yesterday. You did good!!

You're right. He is very scared of losing his career. He was telling his W that there goes his promotion and he has a lot of pressure on him now. She had him on speaker phone with me on a different line.

Have you been able to give the OMW the evidence you have of the affair so the OM cannot deny it? What does the OMW know about the affair? Yes, but she had her own evidence also. We just put the puzzle together. She caught him at a hotel, but no one was there. He tried to say it was for his buddy. He also admitted to her that he cheated. He said she didn't mean anything and she was just something to do. My WW told the OMW that he was just a F***. Makes me wonder why I'm trying to save this marriage.

((((((GJM))))))))

Here is a major hug from you. I know you are down. Sucks.

Ya know what's going to help you? I PROMISE?

Go back up a bit and read HelpFTLD, NG, and every other posts to you in the last few hours. What WILL help (trust here...experience speaking from many, many other folks here) is to have a plan.

My friend, there is nothing worse than feeling like you are not in control of your own life and future. Ask anyone diagnosed with an illness. Control of yourself (not others) = a path and plan to happiness. You must now take control of your life.

Got that? That's not a random "feel good" statement. That is a demand of you to do right now what you should do to protect your family.


Defining your own life will bring peace, and you need to define RIGHT NOW in exact terms what your life will be. That means, I will not be a doormat and have a wife banging some dude in my life.

Crude?

Yes, but factual.

GJ, I don't know if your marriage can be saved, but what you did today pushed you further towards that goal. There is more hope today than there was yesterday.

It all depends. He'll be in damage control mode now which means ending all contact with your WW. This is fantastic.

Look, the military needs overwhelming evidence of an affair in order to pursue it legally. So the emails you have help, but they may not be enough. Regardless, the chain of command isn't stupid.

Is he an officer? Are you?

I don't know how the rules on this applies to enlisted, which is why I ask.

Sometimes, if a soldier (or Marine in your case) is a respected soldier and good at what he does, the chain may look to scare the crap out of him and threaten him with escalation if things don't stop.

That might be enough. It helps if your own chain is onboard and applying pressure. Personally I'd pursue it and see that they don't just sweep this under the rug.

But regardless, he'll want to save his own butt and will drop WW.

Like Melody says, you have a better chance today, after what you did, than you did yesterday.

You've isolated your WW and that's good.

Question for you: Does WW have many female friends or is much of a social person?

I ask because my ex had, and still doesn't have, many friends of her own. I consider such a thing a red flag in a woman.

Just wondering if yours is like this or not. This could be indicative of your chances for saving things.

Hmmmm. I just caught the whole thing about OM being just a f*** for your WW.

That is a very bad sign, in my opinion.

There may be a lot more at play with your WW in terms of boundaries, social issues, mental health, etc.

"Hmmmm. I just caught the whole thing about OM being just a f*** for your WW."

Don't they all/often say that when busted? OP thrown right under the bus as just a f---?

Hear that, G? Stick to the plan!

You hit the nail on the head. She doesn't have many friends. She never was a social person like me. She keeps to herself. I tried to introduce her to other wives throughout our marriage. I believe there are deeper issues within her that only she will be able to sort out.

Agree, Surfer. Most waywards make this claim when caught red handed. The other person "meant nothing.." blah, blah, blah,.....

Thank you

GJM,

I may be waaaay off base here, but ask you this question for a specific reason:

Did your wife ever suffer from any kind of abuse as a child?

I found out AFTER my D, that my WXW was abused as a child. I did a little research and suddenly a lot of things made sense. I finally understood the distrust towards strangers, the awkwardness in some of our interactions with other couples, the lack of social graces, and the absence of female friends.

My ex did make some friends, but she discards friends very easily and doesn't keep in touch. The friendships are often very shallow.

I share this with you because IF this is one of the problems with your WW, then the issues are much deeper than just an affair.

That's a long term thing to look at down the line. But if you do ever set out on the road to recovery you'll have to deal with this issue.

But, like I said, I didn't find out this MAJOR secret until after my D from my WXW and the research I did on the subject was extremely revealing and tons of things made sense at that point.

There was abuse from her mom and she had no father around. But you know what? I was abused and had no parents around. I know everyone is different, but I can see your point.

And it's funny because I recognized these things and offered counseling to her, but it was coming from me so she took it as an insult.

Did you expose to your daughter ?

I wouldn't spend a whole lot of time on that. It is important to recognize it as a possible contributing factor, recognize it and move towards building healthy boundaries that prevent future A's.

Should I not contact her? She hates my guts right now anyway. When I told my DD last night, she didn't really say anything, but for the first time in a very long time, she hugged me.

I would be real careful right now to AVOID coming across as begging, needy or pleading. A wayward spouse will use such reactions to maintain control of you. Your wife is very manipulative and sneaky and you can't allow her to control you anymore.

I would back off a little until things die down. And I would encourage you to start keeping us informed about the sitution. Your vagueness is making it almost impossible to help you. I can't help you if I don't understand what is going on. You have to keep us in the loop here and I have felt like I am pulling teeth just to get basic facts. I really want to help you, but I need you to be more forthcoming to do that.