April 5th, my oldest daughter's 18th birthday, I am chatting with my wife while she is getting ready for bed when her cell phone, right next to me, buzz's and a strange message appears. "Who's that?" I ask. "I don't recognize the number," she replies. Alarm bells start going off in my head.

It eats at me all night but I fall asleep. I get up the next morning and pull the cell phone bill. For a number she doesn't recognize, averaging two texts a day and phone calls up to 110 minutes is not consistent.

I google the cell number and find the guy's name. I hit facebook and find the guy's name, and find he's friended my wife. My world starts collapsing.

I confront my wife. She says she misled me, he's just a friend. "Why?" I ask. She was afraid it would hurt my feelings.

I stabilize myself a bit. Later in the day she's away from her phone. I can tell she's deleted all the texts. I do a quick search and find old emails that use words like "romantic". My world continues to fall apart but I sit on the new information.

The next morning I can sit no more. This isn't adding up...there's too much here for me to ignore. I confront her again. She doesn't break down but does say she's "wronged" me. During the course of the next two weeks I alternate between shock, suicide and anger. The only thing I accomplish is to get myself into a counselor and ask her to do the same. At least she did that much.

24 years of marriage, two girls 18 and 14, and this is what I'm worth to her.

Let's be clear, I am not the perfect husband. I have done stupid things that hurt her feelings and made her feel less valuable to me than what I wanted her to feel. After reading here and other places, I have no doubt that I did not meet her need for connection through conversation. I did not make her feel cherished.

One reason I struggled with being a good husband is because I was often hurt and angry. We rarely ever had sex more than twice a month and would often go six to 8 weeks. I didn't want to pressure her for sex and I didn't understand my need for affection too.

It is extraordinarily hard for me to express these feelings because I feel wrong and embarrassed to do so. And even when I do bring them up, the typical response is "I have to do everything around here and am too tired. You should count yourself lucky to get it as often as you do. Many women my age don't even have sex anymore. How would you like that?"

I suggested counseling at least 3 times over the last 5 years. She always declined. I suspect the affair has been going on for at least two and maybe as long as 5 years.

I asked that the relationship stop and she agreed. A week later I do some more snooping and figure out that she has set up a new Yahoo email account and even at least investigated buying a burner phone. Dead in my tracks again. I can't work, I can't sleep, I can't think straight. There are only three things keeping me going at this point: 1) My kids--somehow I pray they are better off with me than without me, 2) I made a vow of "for better or for worse"; and 3) I don't want to be the guy who gives up.

I've lost 10 pounds without trying. My back went out. I still can't think straight. I'm doing everything I can to try to engage her in conversation, show her that I care. I'm smothering her and I know it but I can't stop. In spite of all this, she doesn't want to sit with me, hold hands or anything. No affection really but that's not new, I just need it more than ever. She gives me a kiss on the cheek before she goes to bed and says "love you," but it seems hollow.

She's been wearing a bracelet that she says she bought for herself while traveling. Bullcrap. It has a heart design...she's never bought anything like that in her life. She finally quit wearing it this last week.

I have to find a way to move on. To believe that I can live without her but without hating her. Regardless, my kids will still need their mother.

Right now her counselor seems to be focused on helping her express her feelings. So she tells me she doesn't trust the newfound attention. I wouldn't either but I have to bite back an angry outburst regarding the word "trust."

I need a plan...my counselor is trying to help me change how I think about myself...she wants me to take control of this situation...I can't control my emotions for 4 hours. I need to get back to work. Things are starting to slip.

One minute I think my wife loves me and wants to make it work and work better....next minute I think she could care less if I am in the room. What would my life look like without her? I need that vision to be a positive one to get on top of these emotions....especially the "wish I was dead" ones. I can still give our relationship a chance but there needs to be an alternative. 24 years of all the eggs in one basket seems to have been a bad strategy.

fg, welcome to Marriage Builders. First of all, I'll notify the moderators to have your thread moved to the "Surviving an Affair" forum. You'll get the help you need over there. You are on the Recovery forum.

Next, go to the Surviving an Affair forum and read the first thread called "Start Here First - Welcome Aboard" - that will get you started on what you need to do to kill this affair and hopefully get your wife back.

Have you exposed the affair to anyone?

Hi, friend, welcome to Marriage Builders. I am sorry for what you and your girls are going through. Please click "notify" and ask the moderators to move your post over to the "Surviving An Affair" section. That is where you will get the help you need.

Welcome to MB and sorry for your pain.

Please read this. Start Here First-Welcome Aboard

Quick educational resources for you on how to move forward:

Video (free): Infidelity: What Every Couple Should Know by Dr. Harley
Articles (free): How to Survive Infidelity, 30 articles by Dr. Harley
Basic Concepts (free): Dr. Harley's Basic Concepts
$9.99: Surviving an Affair Dr. Harley's classic book on infidelity, coauthored with his daughter Dr. Jennifer Chalmers (ebook edition; you can be reading it on your computer immediately)

Thank-you.

I have told three of my friends about it. Ones that I trust. I have needed to talk and talk to keep my head above water.

We can give you a plan, and I assure you it won't be sitting on the deck of the sinking Titanic chatting about the price of tea in China. My mouth dropped reading that you have been sitting in counseling talking about feelings instead of addressing the real problem: THE AFFAIR. All the need meetin and counseling and chatting and whatnot will avail you exactly NOTHING until her affair is killed.

Counseling is USELESS when there is an ongoing affair because recovery is impossible until her affair ends.

This is why your first order of business is to kill her affair and run the OM off by exposing it. Your marriage cannot survive an ongoing affair.

Please go read the thread in my link Exposure 101 to develop a strategy to save your marriage. This is hopeless unless you kill the affair. Here is the plan you should follow:

The Carrot and the Stick of Plan A

The carrot of Plan A


Meeting your wandering spouse's emotional needs.

Making "home" a warm and inviting place to be.

Placing emphasis on what has worked in the marriage.

Showing consistent self improvement in areas where previously lacking.

Stop lovebusting behaviors.

Communicating with a calm reassuring voice and relaxed body language, even in the center of a verbal storm created by the infidel.

Becoming the person any reasonable spouse would want to come home to.

Remaining open to the possibility of recovery.

Offering forgiveness and understanding.



The stick of Plan A


Exposing adultery where it matters most. Exposure that takes the form of a swift and sudden unexpected tsunami of truth.

Not apologizing for exposure or speaking the truth in a kind yet direct way.

Directly communicating the hurt and devastation that the affair has caused.

Not accepting blame for the infidel's choice to become adulterous.

Let the consequences of adultery and infidelity fall freely upon the heads of the adulterous.

Establishing boundaries that disallow the affair to effect children of the marriage, financal security of the marriage, and otherwise ruin innocent bystanders.

Standing up to infidelity as a beast that must be slayed for the good of the family.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Plan A is both a *carrot* and a *stick*.

The counselor has absolutely no idea how to save your marriage and is wasting valuable time that could be devoted to saving your marriage. Dr Harley is a clinical psychologist who specializes in saving marriages from affairs. Here is the first step according to him:

You are in a very dangerous situation, my friend. One of the reasons you are so depressed is because you are surrounded with people who are giving you destructive advice to tolerate and enable her affair. You are the abused wife who is being counseled to get ahold of your feelings when you are beaten up daily by an abusive spouse.

You should not tolerate it. Tolerating her affair is enabling.

Wow! Do I still go the exposure route if I think she is cutting off the affair?

Yes.
You always expose, according to Dr Harley

Absolutely! Everyone should know about her affair. Exposing the affair will burst her fantasy world and make her much more willing to work on your marriage. Right now, she is just having a great time wasting time in "counseling" instead of working on your marriage.

Do you know who the guy is? Is he married?

What makes you think she has ended her affair?

Your daughters will suffer a grievous life altering loss if you harm yourself!
They need you. Remember that.
Ask your dr for antidepressants.
Make a pact with someone that you will ask them for help if you are in crisis.

I know who the guy is. He lives on the west coast while we live in the midwest. They met up while traveling and I can only assume they put their travel schedules together.

I cannot guarantee that she has not been contacting him. But I am not seeing the email trail that I saw. But, she certainly could have gone the burner phone route. Obviously, she has a history of lying to me.

The counseling plan for the time being is to do some individual sessions, each with our own counselor, then come together at some point, but I don't know when that point is.

The problem with your counseling plan is that it is a distraction from solving the problems in your marriage. Do you realize this? While your marriage dies on the vine, you and your wife are wasting your time in "counseling."

Marriage counselors have an 84% failure rate and don't have the slightest idea how to save a marriage. They have a higher personal divorce rate than the general population. When there is an affair in the woodwork, they are downright destructive because they do not understand the dynamics of an affair. For example, they don't GET the fogged out, addictive mindset of the wayward and, as such, validate foggy destructive thinking, making the problems worse.

I would urge you to follow Dr. Harley's advice and leave the counseling alone. Dr Harley knows how to save marriages; your counselors do not. They are not qualified or experienced in saving marriages.

Is the OM married?

The longer you allow the affair to go on unimpeded, the harder it will be to save your marriage. The affair becomes more and more entrenched every day.

If all you do is talk, eventually you will drown. What you need is a plan to fight the affair and make your marriage better than ever before. You are very fortunate that you are in the right place for that!

Have you watched the video, yet?

I'm sorry I'm late to this thread, but the folks here ahve been excellent as always in their advice and counsel. You asked about exposure.
Here is your game plan. Most betrayed husbands haven't the courage to follow it fully,
to their own discomfiture. Those that do have remarkably better results than the rest.

NEVERGUESSED'S BETRAYED HUSBAND SURVIVAL KIT

1- KEEP ALL THESE ARRANGEMENTS SECRET FROM YOUR WAYWARD WIFE!
2 � Put a keylogger on any computer you can access that she might use.
3 � Put a spy program on any cell that she might use. ("Eblaster" can cover #4 as well.)
4 � Put a GPS on her car, reporting to your computer.
5 � Put a VAR in her car, and in any room she might use to take "personal" calls
6 � Get a mini-audio-recorder, and have it in your possession and "on" whenever in her presence.
7 � Put together an e-address list of anyone who might have influence on her � parents, siblings (sisters, especially), coworkers, college friends, clergy, hairdresser, anyone.
8 � Put together a similar list for the POSOM.
WHEN YOU HAVE SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE,
9 � Put together the electronic evidence for each AP.
10 - Write a cover note for your wife's contacts, to the tune of: "I must unhappily inform you that my wife, XXXXXX, is carrying on an illicit affair with YYYYYY. I am hoping to recover our marriage, and ask if you have any influence over her, to urge her to abandon her cheating lifestyle and return to me and our family. Her cell number is 111-222-3333"
11 � Write a similar note to POSOM's contacts.
12 � Send out both packages, to all contacts at one time.
13 � Brace yourself.

I am so sorry you are suffering this way.

Really, exposure will help a lot.
Exposure is not a love-buster.
Exposure is an affair-buster.
Exposure is not vindictive or meant to punish.
Exposure serves to STOP the affair.
Until the affair is over for good, you have no hope to recover your marriage.

Do not tell your WW you are going to expose.
Do not ask permission from a counselor.
Take action.
This affair has been on-going for about 5 years as far as you know.
Exposure is over-due.