Hi, I've spent many, many days here with shaking hands reading everything I can and am paralyzed on what to do next.

Me (45 F) Married 25 years. Always pretty solid, my WH has always been the emotionally level, easy going type. Steady employment normal marriage up until May of this year.

He took a promotion and a ton more work and responsibility. When he "asked" if I was OK with it I said a flat NO. He took it anyway. OK, he has a great career and salary and he has to do it every day, so I tried to make peace with it.

I have not dealt with his choices (career over me) very well. We fought a lot. It increased in May, I told him I was at the end of my rope. For the first time he said he was too.

He then told me he was "unhappy with all of his life and wanted to leave". He didn't but started blaming me for everything. I could have returned all of his digs and insults plus some but I absorbed them.

Then I told him I'd like us to repair our marriage and make it better. He said "he wasn't sure yet" I told him he was risking me giving up, he was OK with that.

We continued in a friendly manor and I managed to keep smiling even when I was falling apart. But my gut was nagging at me. I felt he was "up to something" so I asked him flat out several times. He denied he was talking to anyone, seeing anyone, he said he had not done anything out of order with our money.

My gut was still not buying it. So I started investigating, first I found a receipt for a business trip. It should have been paid for by company credit card, but it said cash. OK, I filed it away. Then I checked the safe (I keep a good bit of cash handy) It was very, very light (estimating 3000 gone maybe more). When I asked him about it he said he was going to just disappear and that having a small sum of cash made him feel better. We have plenty of money and no debt, so 3K is not that big a deal and wouldn't buy him a new life.

So on to checking his phone records, he had begun acting strange about his phone and finding excuses to leave the house. He got a new phone that is now his work/personal cell. It is still "our" account, so I looked at the bill. Right before he got the new phone he started a phone pattern with a # that I traced to a female he works with. They were talking and texting for months. I put a pattern together that shows he lied to me about having meetings, being busy, running late, having to go into the office...Spending hours on the phone with OW. She is 20 years younger.

He had no idea I knew anything and he began making moves towards rebuilding our marriage. Told me he did love me and wanted our relationship to grow stronger...

I finally confronted him calmly (after giving him dozens of nudges to come clean) He said she was "just a friend" and they "had conversations about life and hobbies". I let it go a bit and then dug a bit further telling him I had cross referenced information about when they spoke and for how long and that I didn't buy it. He still swears there was no "emotional" connection. He does acknowledge the betrayal. He says he is sorry but the NC thing can't 100% work because they do work for the same company though not in the same dept. and she is 2 hours away.

I feel like he kind of gets it but still find myself not trusting him. He has never done anything like this so I am at a loss as to what to do next.

Is this an EA?

What should I do next?

We have no children, significant assets, and before his MLC/EA we were solid. But part of me wants to cut and run before he does. Why work hard to rebuild something he so casually destroyed?

Hi cmward, welcome to Marriage Builders. I am sorry for the reasons that bring you here. And even sorrier to tell you that your husband is having much more than an emotional affair. He is having a physical affair and it has been going on for a while.

What you should do next is very quietly hire a PI to get the goods. Have the PI do a full background check on the OW that includes her marital status, criminal history, and her parents name.

Once the PI gets the evidence, come back here and we will help you with next steps.

TODAY, go to the OW's facebook page and copy and paste all her contacts into a WORD doc for safekeeping.

Don't accuse, don't ASK him anything more. Don't even mention you are suspicious. Be like James Bond for now. We will help you come up with a strategic plan to kill the affair and save your marriage.

Can you do this?

Not sure this is going to comfort you, but it's 100% certainly an EA, and (guesstimate) 80% certainly a PA.

(Exactly what do you think the self-paid "business trip" was for?)

Sorry, but you should start attacking this having the most likely situation as your starting point.

Have you read this?
Start Here First-Welcome Aboard

I have read most of the stuff on this board (absorbing it and applying it to yourself is another matter). I just worked up the nerve to post...I still do love my husband. Now I feel as if I don't know him.

I have run a complete background on her have her family member names, her boyfriends info. Her phone # Facebook is on private. I saved the phone and text records. My issue is if I put it out there and blast it open at his office. He may lose his job, she probably would as well. He is an officer at a Fortune 500 company, she is lower level than he is. So if I am going to leave. I'm dealing with an unemployed (by my hand) man who can't pay the lifetime alimony I am entitled to.

As for the business trip that he paid for cash he did submit an expense report for it (I found that in my looking) and he did have a legitimate business reason to go there.

It feels too easy to just accept he is sorry and move forward. I'm still hurt and angry and believe he might do this again at some point or find a better way to hide it. He was never the type to do this. I was shocked and sick when I kept having that nagging feeling and actually found evidence. I honestly thought there had to be an innocent explanation.

Looking back at his records, I realized he started this up using his own personal phone. He probably figured I might notice so he started talking about getting a new "personal/company" phone. He had 2 phones before. I guess he thought his phone calls to her would blend. But I was keeping notes on his behavior. And on the days he spoke to her the most, we fought. And during this time I was trying very hard NOT to fight. He kept telling me it was my fault he was miserable and he felt he couldn't make me happy.

So now he is "committed to making our marriage better than ever" and is making efforts in honesty and transparency (gave me the passwords to his phone and e-mail). He has agreed to tell me any time he has spoken to her or has any contact. He says he is deeply ashamed of the violation of trust (but I was the last person he could talk to). He swears he realizes what he did was wrong but will make it up to me. So far, it has been a lot of talk. He is in a better mood, and back to his pleasant self and more affectionate but I have walking on eggshells trying to be kind and still doing everything that I do for him and us (feeling like a doormat as I type that).

Just to fill in blanks. I have sacrificed my career to aid and grow his. I have always had complete control over the finances and have done well we are financially well off. I pay all the bills and handle the money. For him, he has a credit card (I get the bill and if he needs cash he gets it out of my purse). Exposing him at work would ruin his career. I'd rather leave than deal with that aftermath.

badway, if he is committed to repairing your marriage, he can't remain in that job. Surely you understand your marriage will never recover that way. He can't go to work every day to see his girlfriend and expect you to recover from his affair.

A person who is not honest about his affair is not "committed" to anything other than hiding his affair so he can keep it going. All that happened here is that your husband took his affair deeper underground.

If you want to recover your marriage, you are going to have to expose it. Since you don't want him to lose his little job, I would give him a month to be out of there. He can resign tomorrow. If he is not out of there in one month, then you should expose it at the highest levels in his company. In the meantime, you can expose the affair wide and far to your family, friends and to her boyfriend, family and friends.

I have worked for 2 Fortune 500 companies since 1989 and your husband will ruin his career if he doesn't get out of there. You know what he is doing is reckless and dangerous. He is a loose cannon and walking legal liability.

From Dr Harley's book, Surviving an Affair - pg 71,

"While I unhesitatingly recommend exposing the affair to friends, family, clergy, children and the lover's spouse, I'm not so quick to suggest exposing it to am employer. That's because such exposure could have unintended legal and economic consequences. For example, the affair might constitute grounds for a sexual harassment claim by the unfaithful spouse's lover. Or it might trigger the outright firing of the spouse, making it far more difficult for them to find another job. So in those cases I usually advise the betrayed spouse to warn the unfaithful spouse he or she will expose the affair to the employer in a month if the unfaithful spouse is still working there, giving him or her time to make a graceful exit from the job to another. Even if a new job cannot be found in a month, I recommend waiting no longer to inform the employer, unless the unfaithful spouse has already resigned."

So you have 3 choices:

1. he remains in that job and continues to see the OW every day and you deal with an on-again, off again affair for years, risking a pregnancy and/or divorce - your marriage will NEVER EVER recover this way

2. he gets caught [WHICH IS LIKELY] when some employee reports him to the anonymous hotline and is frog marched off the premises by the Director of HR and an armed security guard in front of all the other employees [SEEN THIS HAPPEN 3 TIMES IN 15 YEARS!]

3. he gracefully quits his little job and learns that no, Bob, you can't get your honey in the same place you get your money!

Take your pick!

Thanks for the advice, I have done so much reading here and so much has helped (even though it is so raw and painful). He IS the highest levels of his company (one of the top 4), they have covered up for others lower than him before. He is a President and COO. As for Exposure, family (most of his are dead or won't care) friends will divide amongst the lines. My family adores him and both my Parents and Siblings would not take a side. I've seen this when my sister divorced. So work is the biggest thing and will be my source of support if I need to rebuild my life alone. I am a so very afraid that I will be all alone and people will think I am a crazy monster after Exposure.

I have used so many of the helpful ideas posted by all of you already. Operation investigate helped me a great deal. I was able to reconstruct text messages and put together a list of calls made and received. It may sound dumb but the reconstruction (I read texts heard voice messages and even used a VAR and heard his side of the conversations) points more toward an EA and not a PA (no I'm not in denial I'd understand if it went physical easier than the emotional betrayal).

I do not think he will leave his career for our marriage. He has worked too hard to get to this position. I guess I don't know what I am working toward. Fighting for a marriage. I don't think I'll get my terms. Or fighting in court for a settlement and living life on my terms. I can't find clarity. This marriage is all I know I've been with him since I was 20. I do realize it must be maddening to read this as it must be crystal clear to you all on the other end.

As for Exposure, family (most of his are dead or won't care) friends will divide amongst the lines. My family adores him and both my Parents and Siblings would not take a side. I've seen this when my sister divorced. So work is the biggest thing and will be my source of support if I need to rebuild my life alone. I am a so very afraid that I will be all alone and people will think I am a crazy monster after Exposure.[/i]


You don't know this for sure.

I used the same thoughts to almost talk myself out of doing this. Exposure saved my marriage; more importantly, it saved my wife.

You will be pleasantly surprised who stands with you against adultery, the destruction of a family. Those who stay silent and idle reveal their true characters, and as people who shouldn't be in your life anyway.

You are not a crazy monster. You are someone who is standing up for her marriage and family, and against the evil of adultery.

EXPOSE.

Thanks to anyone who has taken the time to post and help me find my backbone. People normally tell me I am strong and I have been a shaking wreck on the inside. I am so broken at the moment that I am having a hard time seeing a positive outcome.

I never reach out for help so your messages are truly meaningful. I know what I must do, doing it is terrifying.

Just curious: What if you could have a wonderful marriage but it required your husband to take a lower level job and a huge pay cut? Would you want that or would you rather get divorced and receive alimony based on his current income?

And you want to stay married to a guy who would do this?

We realize you are scared, my friend, and we are here to help you. But you are giong to have to put aside your fears and do some footwork here or you are headed for disaster. You must expose this affair. You can't forgo the most valuable weapon you have based on your guesses about future reactions. That is not rational. Some people will support you and others won't, you have no control over that.

Nor do you have control over whether he leaves the job or not. If he doens't leave the job, you don't have a marriage. So you have to try to get him out of there.

Expose the affair using the suggestions on my exposure thread. Once you expose it, tell him he has one month to quit his little job. He has wrecked his career by having an affair with a female subordinate and it is just a matter of time before some employee reports it to their hotline.

WE can help you save your marriage, but you have to stop being afraid. We were all afraid too! But most of us are now in fully recovered, happy marriages because we took these steps. You are headed towards divorce now. Do you want to stop that train? This is your best chance.

You have already lost your marriage to this woman. It is headed to divorce NOW. We can help you stop this train if you will listen. Your H can get another little job somewhere else. If he won't leave, then you can get him removed by exposing at the highest levels. I assure you that a CEO will not stay where he is after having an affair with a female subordinate. When they find out, he will be escorted off the premises. And when that happens, he won't be able to get a job anywhere else. EVERYONE WILL KNOW IN HIS INDUSTRY.

You can save him from that by making him quit.

My answer about a lower level job is a huge YES!!! I don't think the huge personal sacrifice of time (our only real asset in life) is worth the $$$ at all. I have never let out "lifestyle" grow to the level of our income, after basic needs are met it is all "stuff".

I want a real marriage with a partner who is there and in it. I don't want to be the wife of a title.

Yes Melody you remind me of myself on my best days (lots of solid tough love!) I know what I must do and you have gotten through my thick skull that he needs to make a choice.

I realize that I need to face this head on. So my next step is giving him one month to resign and move forward from there.

I know you can do this. Please plan on exposing the affair first and THEN give him the ultimatum. Please go read my exposure thread and come back and let's talk?

Then you are what Dr. Harley calls a "buyer." (That's good!) If your husband would prioritize his career over his marriage, then he is what Dr. Harley calls a "renter." (That's not good.) At some point, your husband will need to get onboard and become a "buyer," too.

Regardless, at this point, your best course of action is exposure. I know it is scary and feels counterintuitive, but it actually works. You can do it!

Yes, please expose the affair first before you talk to him. That is the most important first step and needs to happen as completely and quickly as possible.