On January 1st this year, I have stumbled upon a single e-mail that strongly suggested that my other half has an affair.
I have immediatey started to think that I am loosing my spouse.
What followed next, were three weeks of trying to re-kindle the good 'stuff' in our marriage.
All looked very good and promising. My spouse didn't know that I am suspecting any affair.
And then came the greatest schock.
I realized that this situation had been going on for last 10- 11 years.

Is it moral and ethical to read spouse's e-mails ?
What I am to do, if I do not want to be challenged as a person snooping through personal letters.

read this LINK .... representing Dr Harley's position.

Because the original is locked in the archives .... and most people only quote the first bit .... Here it is.

(from 2006)



And there is more ....



and more ....



and some more ....



.... continuing Plan A ....



and ....



continuing ...



more ....



.....



>>>>>>



~~~~~~


******



~~~~~~~

and finally, This is an old post of mine ... written in 2002... I was trying to put the "doormat of Plan A" issue to rest .... in my own mind. Now you can look at what I came up with, back then.



And now, I can bookmark this thread instead of searching for it every time...

Welcome to MARRIAGE BUILDERS

What is your position about fighting to kill this affair and recovery of your marriage?

The phrase you are looking for is.....

"I will not tolerate secrecy in my marriage. If you want to stay married to me, I expect you to become an open book"

If s/he accuses you of snooping say: "You're right there should be no need to snoop. From this moment on I expect all passwords and your full cooperation in my looking at whatever I want to see. However if I suspect you are being secretive, I will snoop and not apologise for doing so. I will do whatever it takes to save my marriage".

Of course, do not mention these concepts until you are in a position to do so. For example, if you are still snooping and need more evidence with which to expose, you are best not alerting your spouse until you are ready to confront them.

Your post is very gender neutral. Are you a betrayed wife or husband? Men are given different advice to women, so it is important we know the situation.

Welcome to Marriage Builders, Adamandeve.

Who is the jerk she's involved with? Co-worker? How long have you been married? Do you have children together?

There is something wrong with lying and cheating; there is nothing wrong with catching someone lying and cheating.

Adam, you have a right to know what your wife does behind your back, so if she is withholding facts from you, you have a responsibility to snoop and find out what she is doing. Everything she does affects you because you are her husband. No one has the right to the SECRECY to destroy their spouse behind his back.

You should not fear being challenged about snooping. Rather, you should confront her, and pledge to her your continued snooping. Snooping helps you trust her more and it serves as a protective measure.

We are oddly taught in our culture that snooping is wrong, but if you really think it through you will see there is nothing wrong with snooping. Snooping keeps marriages SAFE. We have had many marriages saved here from snooping. Be loud and proud!

Of course we dont mean that you should go through your neighbour's mail

But in a marriage the right hand should know everything the left hand is doing - there's no room for secrets.

Absolutely. I think the oddity is that we wrongly think that the principles we apply to our neighbors should be the same as those in marriage.

How old are you? 50 How old is your WS(wayward spouse)? 50

Do you have any children? Yes How old are they? 25 and 18. No one in our family knows.

How long have you been married? 29 years

Is this the first marriage for both of you? yes

How did your WS meet their AP? in high school and 11 years ago they connected by internet.

How long did the A last? 10- 11 years

How did you find out about the A? I went to his open computer to turn on the i-tunes to listen to the music but... as you guess I open e-mail and here was most sweet and loving New Year letter with words I have not heard in years not to mention The New Year Eve day before. As mentioned before I have started to re-kindle things between us for the first 3 weeks of January that is to the day when I found out that intimate emails go back to 2001.

My spouse maintains that they are only friends now and that he has right to privacy. He also is very proud of the fact that he belongs to the 60% of those who tried and successed finding a person that they love and could trust outside of marriage. This was my spouse classmate platonic love. Highly educated, medical doctor, now twice divorced with two daughters, this person is an angel who is always there for my spouse.
They built such an incredible world of trust and understanding. The person knows all about our family, my spouse favorite poetry, literature, music, that even I do not know. My spouse would read most beautiful poems at the poetry evenings but those poems were selected by the lover and were dedicated to the lover, and I thought they were meant for me.

My spouse did not apologized or expressed his concern about my sadness and grieving and seems to be very content that they did it. My spouse actually screamed at me for making "theatrix". My spouse that 20 minute conversation was sufficient and talking about it makes my spouse nervous. My spouse will reach for alcohol and I do not want to allow for such opportunity. Yes, I cried many, many days and nights. I did not know what to do, where to go. We are in US alone.

Their letters are talking about "stealing" time when it is possible. They realize that at some point this might be all over and that "my spouse" will come back to "sarcophagus" - meaning our marriage for the next 20 or so years. I learned that my spouse was thinking about that person and truly loved that person for 26 years with some "small breaks". That really hurts.

This whole event makes me physically sick and I cannot afford to be sick. I am hiding everything at my workplace but inside I am getting quite destroyed.

I cannot be sure if their correspondence continues not or if it resumes sometime in the future.
I was told that I will never be able to control my spouse thoughts.
I actually do not want to control anything.
Many E-MAILS were and possibly are coming to my spouse's WORKPLACE address but THE LOVER IS IN ANOTHER COUNTRY, so I cannot prove anything more.

Every trip we made to our homeland was an occassion for them to be tete a tete. They went through incredible hoops to hide that, to hide wire transfers, gifts, hard copy letters, books (which were coming to my spouse' s workplace). They even arranged for going out together with our then 16 year old daughter to restaurants and theaters. When on bussiness trip my spouse had this person as a translator to the co-workers. My spouse was so bold and even invited the lover to my father-in-law house during one of such visit.
That is true that they have not seen each other in last two years but e-mails continued till mid January 2012 and they would continue for the next 10 years (I was told) if I have not found out.

Yes, inspite of all that I continue going with my spouse to gym, to theaters,
but... I lost my trust in the person with whom life in the US was built. I think what was American dream turned out to be a complete Failure and Personal Disaster.

Yes, my spouse said that is possible to love two people. I wish I knew I was my spouse's second choice.

Have you ordered the book Surviving an Affair by Dr Harley? Have you read it?

No, I am so new to it, I am going through something that I only can describe as the deepest grieving and sadness.

What is your native language?

Has he ever screamed at you before?

Not really. Though occasionally we would have arguments and voices would go up.
I am the one who looses temper over a dirty floor or walking in dirty shoes :-)

You need to expose very soon. Read the exposure link in MelodyLanes signature for a good exposure plan.

I would also stop listening to your husband and start talking about what you expect from him.

The adulterers know full well they are 'stealing' your time and your marriage. However while you continue to provide them with an alibi they think you are OK with being mistreated and will put up with it.

Exposure should remedy that mistake.

Well, I wish I knew about the site earlier. (I am new and I still have hard time navigating these threads and seeing if someone responded.)

About Exposure
I talked and confronted my spouse about the affair. My spouse does not want to talk any more. The topic is over. All that happened long time ago. "Its an old news". He did not would not say much at all, if I did not have read older e-mails.

My spouse wants to move on, is annoyed with me when I ask question:
why ? why so long ? why I could not be told ?
I also heard, that he loves me too.

The worst is that I met the lover several times. We exchanged gifts talked about children. The Afairee looked straight into my eyes. Here is a kicker, we liked each other.

So "exposure" (only between us) was done. I do not have any intention to vilify my spouse in front of family or adult kids. Here, I am finding very confusing advices about marriage problem and children. Right now I do not want to cause commotion as my kid is about to graduate and is already stressed by scholl work.

I simply would like to protect my kids agains being lied to or lying to others.

***edit***

That advice to enable your Hs affair will end your marriage

That outside article is a very bad advice.

Imagine yourself in place of your (adult!) children. Wouldnt you like to be informed instead of kept in the dark? Why are you giving them so little credit?

Read THIS instead.

The secrecy around this affair allowed it to foster so long. By keeping it secret you are protecting the affair.

These is a high possibility that your kids already know something or suspected something. Kids are generally lot smarter than you think they are and they will feel immediately when there is a tension in the family. And when you lie them about the source, the first reaction is that kids think they are the reason.

If you want to kill this affair it has to be exposed (not to your WH and OP, they already know they are having affair!). Your WH will not stop it and goes incredible lengths to gaslight you (and as I understood from your post, your WH has already succeeded to do this).

This affair is still very alive and will go on as long as you do nothing.

MB is the best support system for situations like yours.

Wake up.

Great thread about exposing to kids HERE.

Would you like to be sat down and lied to by your mother?

Particularly when the lie HELPS your father and his mistress ruin your family in secret?

Not only is it not smart it isn't even a decent way to treat people.

As far as vilifying goes, Dr H is very clear that you must not expose using anger or name calling.

You simply tell the truth, and ask for peoples help and support.

If your husband were an alcoholic it would not be vilifying him to have an intervention aimed at getting him help and support.

Affairs are addictions and secretiveness feeds addictions