I will try to keep this short, I have hurt the woman I love and fear the end is near.

Last October my wife installed a keylogger and gained access to my work email where she found emails between me and another woman. It was someone that I had been in a study group with during my night classes when I went back to school. Initially the OW and I started out as friends and later we started confiding in each other as she was going through a divorce and my marriage was struggling. We would ]have casual conversations about every day events and what was going on in our personal life and before I knew it the emails where way to flirty and filled with comments that I should have only sent to my wife.

I had fallen into an emotional affair and really not even noticed it. At the time I felt like since my wife doesn't want to meet my need of conversation during the day what was this hurting especially since there was nothing physical in nature. Now granted I realize now how much damage I was doing in my marriage by confiding in another woman than my wife and I fear it may be to late to save our marriage.

The morning after Dday in Oct. I called the other woman and told her that I didn't want her to text me, email me or call me. I have not talked to her or seen her since and I have no desire to either. I then went and got a new phone number and gave my wife all of my passwords to every account I have. I then went and stayed with my parents for a few days before returning.

The next few weeks my wife became very distant and started going out with her friends until the early morning or not even coming home. She also started to confide in another man that had went through a divorce a few years back when he caught his wife cheating on him. The first few months of the New Year seemed like maybe things were going to turn around but she has still had this guy that she talks to and of course when she hangs out with her friends he is there.

Then in March I found her phone & read text from her to him saying that she loved him. Of course I got very upset at this and she stated she wanted a divorce so I finally said ok and I started staying with my parents or friends at night. I would go to our house after work and be with the kids until they went to bed and then I would leave. I went and talked to a lawyer about the divorce process and she actually got upset about this saying that we always had to do stuff on my time and not hers.

So she admits that she isn't sure if she wants a divorce but she isn't willing to work on our marriage because I have hurt her so bad and that she will never trust me again. Which I can total understand because I have hurt her but I want to show her that I do still love her and can be trusted again & only want to be with her.

So at the end of May we watched a movie on a Friday night together and I asked her if I needed to find a place for the night and she said no I could sleep on the couch and ever since then I have been sleeping on the couch in the basement. Which in the beginning I thought maybe she is ready to start building our relationship again, but that has been far from the case. She is still in daily contact with this other guy who she swears is just a friend and will not give him up at all & it seems like every weekend for the last month she has made plans so she doesn't have to be at home with me & the kids.

Then Sunday she came home after taking our daughter to play practice and said she was going to a dance lesson and I asked where and when she would be back and she flipped out stating it was none of my business and I needed to quit asking her about what she was doing & who she was with and that she wanted a divorce. After telling her I wanted to work on rebuilding us she stated that there is no trust or attraction there and there never will be. I finally told her ok you can have the divorce if that�s what you want. She said great and that she would be looking for an apartment and she would be taking the kids.

So at that point I figured our marriage was over then I come home from work Monday and she is telling me how she would like to re-landscape our front yard and do all this other stuff to the house....I just don't get it, it�s almost as if she doesn't want to leave but she doesn't want to work on us either? We get along great on a friend level and when it comes to dealing with the kids but beyond that there is nothing. Any advice?

I do know that I still love my wife and want to be with her as we grow old, I have made the biggest mistake of my life ever in confiding in someone other than her to have my needs met. I have went and spoke to a counselor 1on1 and we did a handful of couple sessions with a different one with no real success as she really had no desire to be there at the time. I have also read His Needs, Her Needs and Love Busters and have been trying to implement what I have read. I am the first to admit that this IS all my fault and I fear the damage may be too great to ever fix again.

Sorry, I'm having technical difficulties responding.

I'll be back later.

Your wife is having an affair.
Stop leaving your house.
You need to destroy your wife's affair if you want to save your marriage.
The first step is to find out who this other man is and expose the affair to all of your close relatives, your wife's close relatives and the affair partners close relatives and friends.
Is he married? Do they work together?
Begin gathering evidence very carefully and quietly.

Also read Surviving an Affair by Dr Harley.
Do not tell your wife about this website.

Welcome to MB.

Please read these.
Exposure 101
Men do not leave your homes

I have already exposed this to her parents and my parents. Her parents would really like to see us work things out and I know her mom has encouraged her to stop talking to this other guy. I point out that she is now essentially the one having the emotional affair and in her head she justifies it because I had one to begin with and ruined our marriage. This other guy isn't married and is friends with her friends which is how she met him. I know from the phone bill that she calls him almost every day or every other day. I assume since I can't see incoming calls he calls her as well. They do not work together as my wife stays at home with the kids during the day and then teaches a work out class in the evenings. I have been staying in the house for the last month and half and have no plans on staying anywhere else.

Who have you exposed to on OM's side? His wife? His family? His friends?

First and foremost; YOUR affair is not a reason, excuse, or justification for HER affair.

Do you understand that?

Abuse should never beget abuse.


Her affair is in no way, shape, or form your fault. Just as YOUR affair was in no way, shape, or form her fault.

OM is not married and his family and friends know that my wife is still married. His friends are who she has been hanging out with and they don't see a problem with it since in their mind I was the one that threw away our marriage.

Which I really think I am about to the point where I just go file for divorce myself and try to get custody of our kids first if she is not going to put any effort into our marriage but yet she will not follow through of her threat of leaving, taking the kids. Just last night she was talking about our kids b-day and Xmas and what we should do for it. She has told me before that we should just get a divorce, be friends and co-parents since that�s basically what we are now. When I explain to her that if we get a divorce I will not be a friend only a co-parent she gets angry at me and calls me selfish since this would only be hurting the kids if we are not friends. I then explain to her that I wouldn't be able to be happy seeing her with another guy and still be friends with her she gets upset.

I want to rebuild my relationship with my wife but can't seem to get any traction, last month we went away for four days with no kids and had a great time with the exception of the fact that she would only go if we slept in separate beds.

You shouldn't give up until you have tried the plans. Your wife is cake eating: getting some of her needs met by you and some by OM. Read about Plan A and meet all of her needs that you can, insist that her contact with him has no place in your marriage, and get ready for the work of recovery.

Have you told these friends yourself that the OM and your WW are having an affair?

Have you read the exposure thread I posted for you?

Please also read this.
Carrot and Stick of Plan A

I read the exposure thread and when I exposed this other guy to her mother she was furious and that lasted for about two days. I myself have not talked to her and his friends but they have to know something is going on between them. I have been plan A'ing pretty good for the last three months. She defiantly is cake eating, she is a stay at home mom that started teaching work out classes for an hour three nights a week and just started two noon classes a week and yet I still do probably 80% of the laundry, 100% of the dishes and try to pick up what I can with the time I have left after I get done working my 9-10 hour day. All while she is on facebook playing frontierville. If I mention anything about her possibly helping she flips out and says she has been home taking care of the kids all day and then teaching her classes.

In March when I found the text messages I thought our marriage was over since she was very adamant on a divorce and I gave up on the plan A'ing and hung out with friends(which after reading the plan A thread, maybe this was more self pampering) which these people turned out not to be true friends as they were more concerned more about what they thought I needed to be happy than what I really wanted which was to fix my marriage with my wife.

How can I kill the affair when any time I mention it bothering me or hurting that she is communicating with this other guy(and I assume hanging out with him but don't have solid proof but her story doesn't always add up) she flat out says she does not care because I am the one that cheated on her and she will never love or trust me again and she will not give up a friend who really cares about her?

So do I ask my wife if she is still planning on moving out or do I still try to Plan A and not even mention it?

Can you put a GPS and a VAR in her car? You need to know what she's doing. Can you "show up" at these classes of hers? Hire a PI?

You're in Plan A. You stop all love busting but do not allow the affair to happen under your nose.

You need to tell these friends yourself that you want to save your marriage and that they are having an affair before she spins it that you're an abusive husband or something. Your job is to cause destruction in their affair. Fight for your M. Don't sit back and take it.

Your job right now is plan A and get some evidence. You need to put a key logger on the computer and a gps/vor in her car. You need solid evidence so that you can expose. Exposing is the only thing that you can do to stop the affair, but you need something solid that is damaging to her.

The reason is simple. Her family won't ever accept OM if they know for certain she had an affair with him, and until you have something solid she will play it off and likely get away with it. It also exposes the affair to the light of day and she won't be able to gaslight you anymore.

Until that time be a good husband because she won't forget it if she comes out of the fog. If she flings your affair at you then politely and calmly say that you recogized that your talking with this OW was a trap and a terrible mistake which was destroying your family so you stopped doing it and will never speak to her again.

Exposure will be hard so start reading and preparing. This is going to get more ugly and if you are not concise and well planned it will be even worse.

Oh, get a copy of surviving an affair and read it right now!!!

So the last week I have been looking into GPS & VAR's as well as plan A'ing. She maybe had took our kids to lunch with this guy the other day but she claims they just happened to run into him and his friend but when my 4 year old mentioned seeing this other guy I asked if he friend was with him and she said no and that he had lunch with them.

My four year old is pretty smart but at times her stories do get a little mixed up so not sure how to take this one. My wife repeated over and over that he was with his friend and didn't eat with them.

We had a pretty good week, yesterday we even spent the whole day together just the to of us buying toys for charity, with no real arguments until today. She is going out with a friend that I know and trust tonight, but then tomorrow she is suppose to be going to a relaxation retreat with her mom or so she says. So I text her asking her if she was still going tomorrow and if she would be home tomorrow night and she said probably not, so I asked if she was staying at her mom's. At that point she called me and asked me what I was trying to get at? I told her I was just trying to figure out her plans so I could figure out my weekend.

She then said she didn't know the whole details about this retreat and that she didnt know she had to answer to me. I nicly stated well I am your husband and would just like to know where you were staying. At which she we have never talked about being husband and wife and that she doesn't have to answer to me. So at that point I said well fine do whatever you want and hung up on her(probably not the right plan A thing to do I know but I could tell I was getting upset).

I then sent her this text: if you dont want to work on us being husband & wife again then to go file for divorce but I want to fix us. I know I was the one that screwed up but I want to fix us and always have. Your the one that doesn't want to & is envolved with someone else.

She then came back saying she isn't in love with me and not attracted to me and its been almost a year and its not changing. I then replied telling her if she things she will be happier with someone else then file for divorce & that we will never fall back in love with him in the picture because she will never give me a chance to prove I learned from my mistake. She then came back with a typical wayword's reply stating it had nothing to do with him and I broke the camels back and that she will never be in love with me again.

I then asked why she is still her 9 months later and talking about us in future tense. She replied she is trapped and I have made sure of it, that she has been out of work for 6 years while I went back to school. I replied she could get a job if she really wanted to and that she has said before her mom will help her move out if thats what she really wanted. She came back saying she didn't want her mom's help. So I replied so your just going to doing whatever you please and acting like we arn't married....

In her mind she thinks I should move out of the house while she and the kids live there. When I ask her how she is going to pay for it because I am not going to pay for a house I am not living in she gets upset saying I will owe her childsupport and alomony.

So I assume the best thing to do is protect myself and my kids and try to kill the affair that she says isn't there. I have a feeling she really isn't going to this retreat tomorrow so first thing I will be doing is calling her mom at somepoint to see if she is with her.

Her affair is going strong and she plans on seeing him this weekend. Do you have a GPS on her car and spyware on her phone?

As far as moving out, I would tell her no thank you. She needs to move out herself. And you should not let her take the kids without a court order and an armed sheriff with an UZI.

The time has passed for you to look into GPS units and other spyware. When will you be followi g through?

Also, I would suggest you go confront the OM and tell him to stay away. Is this loser married?

You will have to pay her child support and alimony. I don't know if that will cover all of her expenses. She will most likely have to get a job. I don't know about every state, but my understanding is that most courts favor the primary caregiver in custody agreements. That means that if your wife is the stay-at-home mom, she would be awarded primary custody. Unless you can prove her an unfit mother, 50/50 custody is the norm. Many men actually have less b/c of their work schedule. Also, look into the laws of your state. Here, the person who files first gets the house until the final divorce agreement decides what has to be done with it.

Whatever you should decide, definately see if you can garner information on what she is really up to this weekend. She knows the schedule of the retreat!!! AND, she does owe you answers. She just doesn't want you to have any b/c she wants to do what he wants to do.

As a BS, I want to say that it seems that she is using her anger and hurt at your affair to justify hers. I used and still use at times my WH's behaviors to justify my AO's and DJ's. Did you show her the proper amount of remorse and give her just compensation? It probably wouldn't work right now b/c she is wayward, but it was necessary for her to feel safe with you, open up to you, even think of trusting you, you would have needed to make right your wrongs. Just a thought there.

Some, do you live in a fault state? Because in many states you can file on grounds of adultery and get primary custody of the children and possession of the house and you pay NO alimony. I would look into this.

Don't dismiss your four year old's recounting of the event. She is likely right-on in her accounting.

And tell her that your kids are staying with you when she goes. Be firm in this. That could be a deal-breaker for her. Foggy waywards will leave their husbands. They won't leave their kids that fast. Let her know that YOU INTEND TO KEEP YOUR CHILDREN WITH YOU.