I'm glad you came back.

I hope that you finally see that this is an AFFAIR. Please notify the mods that your thread needs to move to the Surviving An Affair forum. The experts will show up and tell you what to do.

If a mod could move this then please.

The OM already knows what he is doing to you. He is having an affair with your wife. You don't need to tell him. If he cared about you or your family he wouldn't be screwing a married woman.

Have you snooped on her computer and cell phone to get the evidence of the affair like we told you?

Tecson, get the goods and then expose the affair. But do it RIGHT or it will just blow up in your face. Go read the link in my signature about exposure.

You seem insistent that it involves sex but I have had no bad feelings or red flags this is the case.
I do believe it is an emotional affair - a friendship that has gone too far. She doesn't love him nor is she keeping anything secret about it. Some people would be comfortable with the situation, but I've realised that despite suppressing my feelings I am not. It has woken me up to the fact the marriage is in a very bad state and thanks to this website and others I know where we have gone wrong and have a guide to put it right. To start putting it right though first I need to break off the bond he and my wife have. I'm going to facebook message him as it's the only way I can contact him at the moment and tell him what he is doing to our FAMILY.

Tecson, did you read this advice by MelodyLane?

Even though you reject the possibility that he is having sex with your wife, you do accept that this is an affair - you have said so.

In that case, surely you can see that MelodyLane's advice still applies. You don't need to tell OM what he is doing to your family. He knows what he is doing and he doesn't care. If he cared what he was doing he would not be involved with a married woman and mother.

If you must contact him, it should be to tell him to stay away from your wife. You should be scaring him away, not having a heart-to-heart. The latter makes you seem weak and pathetic and he will just laugh at you. He will think "what sort of a wimp writes to another man asking him nicely to stay away from his wife"?

If you decide on the scare tactic, do not warn him that you intend to expose the affair, and do not threaten him with physical harm. Threatening someone like that is against the law. Do not put yourself in a position where you become the offender instead of him.

I'm going to explain what he is doing to our family and marriage and tell him to stay away, there will be no threats over the internet as this can easily be given to the police.

I don't see the point of the "explain what he is doing to our family and marriage" part, but I can see you won't be dissuaded. I don't see the point of your coming to this forum, where most people like me have read hundreds of threads and seen hundreds of situations, and ignoring our advice and going with your own instinct.

You have failed dismally to stop this affair so far. Your own instincts were not to think of an affair for far too long. Your own instincts led you to deny the possibility of an affair to us, when you first came here. Your own instincts led you to move out of your own home, leaving your wife free to explore her own "space" with her OM.

Many of us have made dreadful mistakes, too - I did with my own H's affair. But it is because we have read and advised over so many situations, using Dr Harley's approach to affair-busting, that we are so insistent when we tell you what to do. We know what works best, and we know what makes you look weak to OM. We also know when you are fiddling by talking to him and tipping your hand, while letting Rome burn as you refuse to snoop on your wife.

Once again, you are making strategic mistakes because you don't understand the situation and don't know how to resolve it.

We can't help you if you won't listen to the advice. He already knows what he is doing to your family. He is having an affair with your wife. He doesn't care about your family or you.

It is a good idea to call him AFTER you have the evidence of the affair and AFTER you have exposed the affair. All you do by calling him FIRST is give the affairees a heads up so they go further underground. You are just giving your battle plan to the enemy.

Did you read my post at all? Did you snoop on her computer and cell phone to get evidence of the affair?

If you are here to just BLOG, then let us know so we won't waste our time posting to you. If you already know how to save your marriage you don't need us to help you.

We have already saved our marriages and have lives and families of our own. I don't have time to post to someone who is just here to blog.

About this: I would like you to read several of the posts by a British FWW who used to post here, staytogether. She came here of her own accord when she regretted her affair with a married man and the effect it had had on her marriage. She described the involvement with her OM as emotional, with intimate physical contact (or words to that effect). In other words, they did not go as far as full sexual intercourse, but they did touch each other intimately. I have every reason to believe that she was telling the truth about there being no full intercourse, and I am using her story to show you that, even if your wife's affair has not involved intercourse, you need to act as you would for a physical affair. An EA is as bad as a PA for a marriage.

staytogether told her H about what was, to start with, her genuine friendship with OM, who was part of her hobby group. As she and OM grew close, she continue to tell H about him. Her H did not know what to do about it and never demanded that she stop seeing OM. The affair went on for about 18 months, and staytogether came here after deciding to end it herself.

All along, she had been wanting her H to step in and stop the affair, but perhaps because he saw it as a "friendship", he never did so.

Your wife doesn't seem likely to end her "EA" on her own, and the scumbag OM won't do it to please you. You need to take action by getting irrefutable evidence of what they talk about, exposing it to her family and his girlfriend, and putting a stop to it. AFTER you have exposed to OM's girlfriend, you can contact him and tell him that if he continues to meddle in your marriage you will keep telling his girlfriend, and he will wish he had never been born by the time you have messed up his life.

staytogeher's first thread

I always appreciate everybody's advice, but it is up to me to choose which to take. I am CERTAIN it is only an emotional affair and it is that only becuase I caught it early on, no doubt if I let it continue it could go on to be a full blown PA. There has been no secrecy over their meetings at all, I can't monitor her phone as she always has it on her and it has a pin code lock on it which is one of my early red flags. Also her laptop is password protected - it ALWAYS has been for many many years.

Thankyou for the long reply, yes I am going to demand they stop seeing each other and I'm hoping that will be that! As then we can start rebuilding our marriage, I do appreciate everybodys input here and will read the thread you posted.

I'm unclear from reading your threads, so please clarify whether your wife is still involved with OM today.

Of course it is. And it is up to us whether or not to continue to post to someone who doesn't take our advice. That is a waste of our time, wouldn't you agree?

Brief version, to explain more.

They met at work and got on well, a couple of months later he got moved to another town so they don't see each other everyday. However a 4 -5 months ago they started texting, this was all out in the open and not hidden and at this point she wasn't so careful about her phone and didn't have a lock on it and I read it once and all the messages seemed perfectly innocent.

Then a few months ago she went to see his boat as he and his parents had just bought a boat, I was fine about this at the time but had a massive panic attack while she was gone, I challenged her and she insisted nothing was going on. But over time there was more and more text and more red flags as I spoke to her about him. eg. He is my best friend, when she told him over text we were having problems he asked if she wanted him to away for a while, she told him no but he didn't reply for ages and she got very very upset. Then there's the pin code on the phone and it is always with her. She has been to see him a few times since but always for 6-7 hours at a time and not getting back till 11 or 12. Those are the ones off the top of my head but there are so many more that are just little bits here and there. She can't go to see him without me looking after the kids so I know about everything and the other day we spoke and she said she has never spoke on the phone to him, which I believed unlike many other times she has said things.

I've not helped this situation at all by not asking for her not to do stuff and not setting boundaries.
She has said the usual, we're just friends and if it was a girl there wouldn't be a problem which is true!
It could be my jealousy that has made her feel like putting a pin code on her phone and would explain other stuff but ultimately I still have a problem with them being friends and he is fulfilling her needs of recreational companionship and conversation. Two needs that I know we haven't either of us fulfilled recently due to the pressures of life and 3 kids.

They didn't text much while I was living away as they fell out like friends sometimes do and she didn't see him for a couple of weeks she says because of how I react to her going.
However she went this wednesday but was back earlier than usual at 9pm and didn't seem as happy as she usually does when she comes back.
It could still all be completely innocent and she really is just enjoying the time away from me and 3 kids as she says she talks to him with his parents there and talk about life and watch TV but the whole situation is still wrecking our marriage and the only solution I can see is to ask them to not contact each other.

Tecson, you should be aware that this is a PHYSICAL AFFAIR. Yes, it is an emotional affair, too. Emotional affairs are much harder to bust up. So it makes no sense to say it is "only an emotional affair." [even though its not]

Saying there is "no secrecy" is an irrational statement when you say in the next breath that she has a lock on her phone and her computer. She is obviously keeping secrets from you.


What an irrational statement. Could it be because one gender is a threat to your marriage and the other is not? Her comment is a demonstration of her foggy wayward mindset. Waywards are very irrational.

I think your first step is to face the reality of the affair and I don't see that you have done that. Sure you can "demand" she end the relationship and I agree you should do that, but it is doubtful she will do that. And unless you have the full truth out into the open, the problem will never be resolved.

Ask yourself why you wouldn't be invited along if he is just a "friend?" If he is truly just a "friend" you can all be friends, right?

Even now, after writing the previous post I'm starting to doubt it again. When she made her first visit to him I had come off my anti depressants for a few months which I had been on for 5 years or so which could of made me worse and am currently on new ones which could be making my jealousy worse and almost delusional perhaps.

Because there would be no one to look after the kids and she has invited me before to a meet him and she said she thinks we'd get along great! She also has said that she sees him like a brother and the thought of anything more than that disgusts her.