Very new to this and I do not know what to do. 2 days ago I found out from my wife that she has been having an emotional affair for the last few months. she admitted to it and has said that she totally want to work on our marriage. Now I know for a fact that it is not all her fault. We have talked and she has said that I have not taken care of her. she is very social type woman that likes to engage in conversation. I am opposite and can enjoy just sitting and listening to people without engaging in a lot of talk.We have been married for 17 years and have 3 girls. We live in rural area with a lot of neighbors. I am not the most social person, so I will say 'hi' to people but not really engage with them alot. The friends that I do have are all through her. Now about a year ago we used to hang out with a couple that were a lot of fun and our kids got along together great. I found out last January that my wife and husband were engaging in a lot of texting. When I found out I basically put a stop to this. After that it was another form of communication (ping chat) then it was twitter. Me being a guy I know when another guy is into a woman. (its a guy thing) and I could tell he liked my wife. Now that she has gone to him for emotional needs he is all over her confessing his love for her. I should also note that this other couple marriage ended last march and the wife moved out december 1st. sorry if this is not making much sense but I am basically sitting here with tears trying to write this.

Hey, ILMW:

Welcome to Marriage Builders. You made it to the right place, and you should get the book "Surviving and Affair" from this website and read it cover to cover. Get a copy for your wife and have her read it cover to cover.

Your wife has bad boundaries with men. She needs to make radical changes in her life to safeguard your marriage.

She needs to:

Write a no contact letter to her affair partner. You must be satisfied with how she writes it and make sure to send it yourself.

She must eliminate the ways the OM contacted her (change her phone, email, eliminate twitter, facebook).

She must agree to Extraordinary Precautions (see the BASIC CONCEPTS on this site) to make sure she's never in a position to cheat on you again.

You and she must commit to spending 15+ hours of undivided attention time together to help rebuild your love.

You and she must learn to meet your top emotional needs, so that your romantic bond is so tight no one can break through.

Other, more-seasoned, Marriage Builders proponents will offer more details, too.

Good luck,
SP

I have asked her to quite all contact with him and she has said she will. tough thing is that he lives less than 2 minutes away from us. they do not work together, but my wife looks after kids at home and he is in the same circle of friends as we are. so when we are asked to go to functions he is there as well. He even has made it to becoming good friends with her brother who lives just around the corner from both of us. She asked me not to say anything to anyone yet (her family) till after Christmas because she knows that the ramifications are going to be extreme when they find out. She was hoping to keep Christmas happy for everyone.

She was hoping to keep Christmas happy for everyone.....EXCEPT YOU.

Who's happiness should be at the top of her priority list? YOURS.

Do you see how wrong her thinking is?
Her request to delay is just to protect HERSELF, and to buy more time to scramble and deflect your message.

Prepare yourself for worse news. An OM who lives minutes away, and professes loooooove for your wife has been getting more than "talk".

I don't think there will be worse news. there are to many neighbors around here that would see what is going on and would come to me or someone and tell me. I do see her thinking as wrong, but I feel I need to give her a little as I have asked for her to remove all contact from him which she has agreed to do. Maybe my thinking is wrong, but I guess I never thought anything like this would of happened to me especially coming from her who has always said that she would never cheat on me.

BINGO! There is more going on that EA .. she is trickle truthing you.

Welcome to marriage builders ILMW. Sorry you are here .. but this is the BEST place with the BEST plan to kill this affair and to restore love in your marriage. You will get TONS of support here. listen and DO everything the vets tell you to do, EVEN if it seems counter intuitive. Just do it.

Have you snooped on your wife?
Keylogger on your PC?
Spyware and GPS tracking on her phone? etc?
VAR (voice activated recorder under the seat or in the dash) in the car?


You see .. waywards lie .. the fog is so thick they believe their own lies which makes them believeable to some degree when one doesnt have a plan or knows Marriage builders very well. DO NOT believe what your wife says .. instead confirm. Now you know .. she is MOST likely lieing to you.

Get the Book SURVIVING AN AFFAIR.

Do a top notch PLAN A ... find out what your wifes emotional needs are and then get meeting them. Find out what your love busters are .. and work on ELIMINATING THEM. There is some questionairs to discover lovebusters and emotional needs. Print them out .. 2copies of each .. and have both you and your wife fill them out and exchange them.

BUT .. DO NOT ... I REPEAT .. DO NOT let your wife know of this site for now. You MUST kill this affair .. and keeping it a secret will only enable her to continue it deeper underground.

She will need NO CONTACT for life with this OM anyhting to do with OM will trigger her feelings and she will be back to day 1 of withdrawl and become distant again.

Stick with it ... this is the BEST place to recover your marriage.

MNG

Welcome to MB, Ilmw. I am sorry to hear your story.

About the sentences above: we know for a fact that the affair IS all your wife's fault. Nobody else can be faulted for a decision she took to get involved with a man who is not her husband. Certainly none of it is your fault, since you were not consulted about whether she should do this. How can you be faulted for something you were not asked about?

As others have said, this is unlikely to be an EA, and worse still it is likely that your wife's involvement with this man is responsible for the break-up of his marriage. Contact his ex wife and ask what she knows.

This seems to be a deep affair and, since he lives so near to you, one of you will have to move away. If he is on his own and relatively mobile, then perhaps he'll be a gentleman and up sticks, but if not, then you and your family will have to do it.

You should look into renting you house and moving as quickly as possible. You can go back if he ever moves away.

Does your wife profess love for this man? If not, it should be relatively easy getting her to commit to Dr Harley's plan for recovery.

Coping With infidelity: The End (part 2)

Coping With Infidelity: Restoring the Marital Relationship

I have had contact with the other woman (a long time ago) and she basically said her marriage was over before any of this happened. Asking him to move I probably will not do because I know if I saw him I would do something I would regret. As for us moving we have talked about it but only because we at this moment are having financial difficulties and selling the house is a last resort. Does she love him? She has told me no she does not, but he fills her emotional needs of talking to her. she has said to me if I know the feeling of being alone and being lonely and that she feels she is lonely. When we go out communication in the car is none. I have a job that in a very small office that has nothing for me to offer for her to talk about. nothing really happens here. I try to think of things to talk about other than family but I am usually at a loss of words. I want to be able to fill her needs but I am so at a loss of what to do.

Christmas is the best time to expose for exactly this reason! Why should your wayward get to destroy her family on the side, then enjoy Christmas as if she has done nothing wrong? She should be making apologies to everyone that day.

You DO NOT want the APs to be texting cosy 'miss you baby' messages to each other xmas morning. You want them to be worried about what they have done and dealing with the fallout.

Imagine if one of your daughters tried to burn the house down, then said she would happily be punished - but could you wait till after the big party? Your WW is doing the same.

This has been a PA too, btw - get a polygraph to answer all and any qs you might have.



This cant always have been the case or you wouldnt be married. Be aware too that people who feel guilty like very much to blame others and waywards have been known to 'make up' reasons.

However since moving is going to be a recovery condition (you will get nowhere living near him) - that should give you plenty to talk about!

Build a new integrated life where you share hobbies, passions, dreams - and hopefully slightly better friends. Ask her about herself and what she wants from the future! Women LOVE that!

I'm sorry, ilmw, but it's unlikely that this is just an EA. And have you ever heard the old expression "the husband/wife is always the last to know"? Your neighbors aren't going to be the morals police and bust your wife to you. They're going to look the other way.

If she's going to do it right, the following will need to happen:
-Change her cell phone number.
-Block OM's number.
-Put spyware on her computer.
-VAR/GPS on her car.
-Explain to her brother that your family (especially your wife) can no longer have any contact with him, since he has become friends with OM. NO contact with him.
-You'll need to pack up and move. You can't live that close to OM.
-I would call OM's ex an explain to her that their affair quite likely created additional problems in their already-pressured marriage, and that it is likely that they were physically involved while OM and OMW were still married.
-Expose NOW. She wants a happy holiday FOR HER. This is very good timing for exposure.

The good thing is her cell phone is in my name, so I can track texts, but when use of other platforms are used there is no way of detecting. spyware is great if it works on an ipad. I don't if it does but will check into it. I am thinking I want her to tell her family tonight. will see what her reaction to this will be. thanks to all who have given me some advise on this. I appreciate it.

I hope you are not thinking of asking your wife's opinion before you expose to her family.

You do not warn or ask about exposure at all. You just do it, and when the inevitable anger and upset follows from the wayward, you brush it off and wait for them to get over it.

You NEVER discuss your strategy with a wayward.

Keep an eye out for a secret phone and also look for new phone numbers. My WH had about 5 phone numbers that OW could reach him on. Get keylogger for the ipad and the computer.


You need to do the exposure. If you let your WW control this, she will spin it to make YOU look like the bad guy and herself as the poor neglected wife.

It was your WW's own choice to become wayward and cross the line with OM. You had nothing to do with it. Many people are unhappy but do not become cheaters. Do not accept any blame for WW own decisions. I would bet that you have not been very happy lately either...but you have not turned to some third person to fill your needs.

Stay strong.

No! You expose. Not her. Tell her nothing about it!