I discovered Thursday that my wife of almost nine years was having an affair with OM. My suspicions had been raised for several weeks prior due to lack of affection and sex specifically, and Sunday before last, WW told me that she wanted a separation because she "needed some space". Thursday, she left her phone with our son when she left for work, and after I dropped him off at school, I checked her phone messages and discovered a series of texts between her and a girlfriend where they were discussing her response when I had asked her if there was OM involved. She is not dumb, she speaks several languages and her posts to her girlfriend were in a foreign language so I could not read all of it but enough was obvious for me to get the gist. She had also deleted the texts and calls from her phone to the OM, but a search of the phone bill revealed the frequency of the texts and calls, the length of the relationship (several months), and the number itself. I ran a reverse phone lookup, got the name of the OM, and used that to track down the address, which was about a mile from where she works.

After confronting her about this through texts (she works days and I work nights), she left work early and came home and opened up to me, or at least was a little more forthcoming than she had been. She revealed she had been seeing the OM, and she loved him, and that the relationship had been going on for several months, but claimed that it was only an EA. I told her I did not care if she had had sex with OM, because I viewed the EA as every bit as damaging. She did not agree to stop seeing him although she grudgingly accepted no more contact for a month to give us a chance to work out our problems.

That night we talked for a while after our son had gone to sleep and we made passionate love for the first time in weeks. I had the impression (foolishly) that maybe we could heal our marriage and that this was a good first start. Next morning I had errands to run while she was at work, and I decided to get her a gift card from her favorite store and leave it in her car as a surprise. After driving around the parking lot at work three times to make sure, I realize her car was not going to be there and a check of the phone records revealed it never had been, as she had been texting her gf who worked at the same workplace for several hours after she should have been working. I confront her again that afternoon, she claims she went to see OM to tell him she was ending relationship for a while. By now, I do not trust anything she tells me.

Her same gf has been covering for her, as she no longer calls OM or texts, but I suspect that is only because she has been using gf's phone to contact OM when they are together. She had several opportunities this weekend to do so because she was out for much longer than she had told me she would be on several occasions.

Our conversation now is almost nonexistent, and I have been very civil since this whole thing started so fighting and arguing has been minimal. WW tells me she does not think that we can save our marriage and does not really want to try. My mind tells me that the next step is exposure (should have been the first thing that happened when I discovered it), but I need to hear reassurance that it is the right thing to do. We are both away from all family here in ND, and there is no money for lawyers or expensive divorces forthcoming from either of our families. In fact, there is really nowhere for either one of us to go to after exposure because apartments are nonexistent without some serious money for deposits and rent. I would be dealing with her wrath for some time once I pull the trigger.

Please validate my concerns that what I am about to do is the correct decision.

Very sorry for your need to be here

Yes expose. She will not be willing to recover unti the affair is killed.

One month NC is BS. That's just some kind of going through the motions. Even starting recovery requires NC for life. She needs to go NC with the gf who is aiding the affair as well.

It is very important that you do not leave your marital home unless court ordered. And you prospects for recovery are better if she does not leave. So not having an easy alternative may be a good thing.

I do not think I would/could be ordered to leave the apartment. My name is the sole name on the lease and that was one of the first things I did when she told me she "needed her space" was contact the landlord (who happens to be a judge). Landlord said I could not be forced to leave and that she woulhd not allow WW to stay in apartment by herself.

The gf is a friend of hers from the same village she grew up in overseas, who happens to have been divorced twice... I foolishly helped to bring this woman and her teenage son out here several months ago after her last divorce had been concluded and she was slowly becoming destitute in NJ. I have been far too trusting of my wife and not paid close enough attention to her associations.

WW just left for work. I have been thinking this whole exposure thing over and over all night. Yesterday while she was at work I started trying to get a handle on all her email accounts and online names she goes by. Many of her friends and online personas are from/in russian, and her entire family lives in the former soviet republic she grew up in. She was a war bride; we met while I was in the Air Force and deployed to her country. While I speak some russian, and read it fairly well, she also speaks a central asian language which she has begun using almost exclusively in her texts to her gf now that she knows I am monitoring her phone.

The logistics of exposure are thus made more complicated due to her family being overseas and the necessity to translate the exposure letter into russian. I only have a reliable email address for her oldest sister, who has herself had a rough marriage and has consistently advocated on my behalf during other rough episodes in my marriage. I will most likely expose only to her, and rely on her to communicate to the rest of the family.

I have tentatively set the exposure date for next Monday; our son has his 7th birthday on Sunday, and I want the worst of the damage to be done over the week when work makes it the hardest for WW to counter. WW claims OM does not work with her; I have not been able to determine where he works or even if he works. To the best of my knowledge he lives in a tiny house on a city lot with his mother. The mom will get an exposure letter too. WW has one friend locally who is a social worker, also from the same country as WW (beginning to see a pattern, friends with foreign women from her country of birth, but male friends are exclusively from US and non-russian speaking). The social worker aspect could be problematic, as this woman could potentially arrange for shelter and financial assistance that would enable the affair to continue.

WW has several older female friends who reside in CA, one who is the wife of a pastor and recently returned from a trip to WW's country of birth, where she had provided assistance to WW's family.

In retrospect, I should have seen this coming as this is not the first time we have had marital problems due to her close relationships with male friends. The first time this happened, WW was emotionally involved with the boyfriend of my mother, whom she had been staying with while I was deployed to Afghanistan. I realize now after reading surviving infidelity, that we serendipitiously saved our marriage and ended the EA when I brought my WW back to Fort Drum following my deployment. The nastiness and depression and fighting/lack of affection were in hindsight withdrawal from the EA which had been severed by moving across country. Second EA took place while I was deployed to Iraq the following year. WW was living with same gf who is now enabling her current EA, and became involved with a restaurant owner whom she went to work for several nights a week. Our son was staying with his grandmother in Central Asia during this deployment in order to allow WW to work full time. When I discovered this affair (which she claimed had never been physical), I bought her a ticket and sent her out to stay with her family so she would be under their watchful eyes for the remainder of my deployment. Again, geographical separation ended that affair. A third potential affair was ended before it had a chance to begin when we left CA to work out here in ND. As I write this, I realize that a consistent pattern of affairs has been taking place during our marriage, and the fact that all of these have been emotional affairs tells me that I am failing to meet her needs in several areas of our marriage.

As I am about to cross the Rubicon, I want to ask those of you who have had to expose their WWs affair, what lessons did you learn from exposure and what would you do differently if you had known what you now know? What reactions took place with your WW after exposure? I have been fearful of taking this step of exposure because WW has threatened taking our son and leaving if I let her family know. How did you reconcile with the extended families on both sides after exposure? What threats did WW make to you prior to exposure and did WW carry them out afterwards? I realize that as long as the affair continues, any effort on my part to deposit units into WW's love bank is doomed to failure and that exposure is a neccesary step; I just need to anticipate what the most likely response from WW will be and emotionally brace myself for the fallout.

I apologize for the lengthy post; I have no one else to talk with about this, and writing this down helps me to gain clarity on what needs to be done.

Others will be along with more advice soon, but you need to secure your son's passport to a location she cannot access prior to exposure, outside of your home somewhere.

Hi cbowles, welcome to Marriage Builders. Please go read the thread on exposure linked in my signature. It gives best practices, templates, talking points and what you can expect. Exposure is your best weapon if your goal is to save your marriage.

As for a perspective on doing the exposure. Do it completely and all at once. From experience a trickle exposure is worthless.

All waywards say what your wife is saying to you right now, so don't pay attention to anything she says. You absolutely should make it impossible for her to take your son out of the country before exposure. You cannot stop her from taking him elsewhere without a court order, but it will look bad on her part in a custody battle. Don't fear exposure because you cannot be held liable for telling the truth. Don't be vindictive, just state the facts, as many as possible, and have evidence on hand to back up anything you say. Follow the advice in the exposure thread to the letter.

She will be furious, she will fuss, fume, spit venom and fire, but nothing she can really do if you're just truthful. Just remember to remain calm through her tirades, and offer her a cookie.

I am planning on doing the exposure all at once. I am not worried about her taking son out of the country; we barely have money left over after paying rent each month, and she has no access to credit cards or loans to cover the cost of tickets. Her family does not have those resources either; we send money to them to help them out! Anyway, our son needs an updated passport in order to travel. I am glad now that I did not update it at the beginning of the year like I had wanted to do.

At this point, evidence is more problematic. I have phone records connecting her with OM, but no actual texts because she would delete them, and no name but the name registered to the phone, which happens to belong to a single, 30yr old male living conveniently close to her workplace. I have her words to me that she is in love with OM, but no confirmation from her lips on the name. Everything is circumstantial if it were put in front of a jury. But I want to move fast on this before I lose my resolve.

Can you get hold of a digital voice recorder and engage her in another conversation? You could record that and likely get confirmation. Just go easy for a day or 2 and she'll likely open up. Also check FB for his name and see what you can find. You could also do a background check pretty cheaply.

Incedentally, you are going to have to start spending more time with each other. That's the first problem I see with your marriage; the offset work schedules. Sadly a common thread with our armed forces. Ill let the other military BHs chime in more on how to fix that.

I am going to try to pick up a digital voice recorder and engage her in conversation. I broke down and made a fake FB account and tried to find the account of the OM. Apparently he does not have one or he is under an assumed name. Same with WW. I know she used to have one but it has been removed. Her GF who is covering for her also has an account which I checked, but could not find either one of them listed as friends. I had a disturbing thought just a few minutes ago that the reason I cannot find communication from them is because they use a service like WhatsApp or another similiar web messaging service to bypass the phone logs altogether. I have to get a keylogger on WWs' phone so I can see how she is contacting OM. I also searched her car for a disposable phone but I did not find one.

I am no longer active duty, I left in 2009 partly because the toll it was taking on our marriage and the no-end-in-sight year-long deployments. I dislike the offset work schedules greatly. I have wanted to get off for some time but it is easier said than done. I am presently in the hiring process for the railroad, which is less than five minutes from the apartment, but most likely I would continue to be working nights until I get some seniority within the shop. It was not so bad until WW started working several months ago; about the same time the EA started. Prior to that she was taking online classes and could not be out and running around during the day due to her full course load and taking care of our son.

WW has the view that son comes first before even H and W, and our marriage has suffered quite a bit from that. I have a great deal of resentment and jealousy from it, and no amount of talking has been able to change the mind of WW concerning it. I have to fight for time at the margins in order to compete for WWs' attention. Undoubtedly, I have many issues of my own that I need to correct and work on, however I did not compel WW to go have an affair. That was her choice.

Just secure your kid's passport. You never know what a WW will do. For all you know OM might give her money that she'd use for that.

cbowles, I only had a moment to scan through your posts yesterday morning but I just re-read them and am fairly caught up now.

The first thing that stands out to me is that your wife is a serial cheater and your marriage has never recovered from even the first affair. The reason I say your marriage has never recovered is because the conditions that led to the affairs has never changed. This has now become a way of life for her.

Exposure might help a little, but I doubt it will help much. What will help more is to change your lifestyles so she can't cheat. I am utterly amazed that you came back from deployments [the CAUSE of her affairs] and jumped right into another impediment to recovery [working opposite shifts]. You had a chance right there to change your marriage but didn't take it.

I would do whatever you have to do to get on coordinated DAY shifts together and start being married people.

You don't need more evidence to expose her affair. She already told you about the affair.

I would expose to everyone and stop cherry picking people. Just send them an email and leave it to them to translate. Send it to all her family members, your family members, close friends. Don't slice and dice here because you don't know who will come to your aide.


These were physical affairs too. But you are right that you have not met her emotional needs. Even if you had met her needs PERFECTLY she would still have affairs, though. She has poor boundaries around men. That is WHY she has affairs and is why she will have more in the future unless you both make radical changes in your lifestyles.

I also would not wait to expose the affair. Just get this done. There is no reason to wait.

Secondly, I would drive to the OM's house and speak to his mother in person. Does the OM work with your wife?

The idea is to make the affair more trouble than its worth for POSOM. Talking to his mother and exposing shows everyone that you love your wife and she is doing wrong without explicitly saying it. The key is actions, ML is a veteran posters please take her advice into action and bust up this affair. Most POSOM just want easy sex, once you make it hard for him he will likely run away.

ML and TD are right. Show the scumbag he's barking up the wrong tree.