I wish I could say that I�m happy to post here�but I�m not. Sorry.

I�m posting here because I am a scared 42-year-old father of two, a VP who works very hard for his family, and someone who just recently learned that his 41-year-old wife has been developing an emotional relationship with a 33-year-old single co-worker. Hour long phone conversations at night when I�m on the road has been more frequent until I confronted her about it. And I got copies of her texts, some of which made my heart sink. When confronted, she claimed she knew of my access to her texts and had her �friend� engage in �false texts� to �pay me back for my snooping.� I�m not buying that song and dance, but what can I do but get into an infantile argument where I claim she�s lying and she claims she�s not? The only �beneit� to this �friend� situation is he lives in another state, so my stress level is off the charts when my wife travels (will HE be there too?).

Over the past three months, I�ve seen changes in my wife. And these changes don�t seem to be for the better. While she works from home, she is now traveling quite a bit and when she travels, she is no longer going to dinner with colleagues and calling a night, she is now staying out longer and having drinks with her co-workers. Last night, from the road, she called me at 10:45pm and I could tell she�d had a few.

To be fair, when I was younger and working my way up the corporate ladder, I, too, stayed out and socialized on business trips. I, too, developed friendships with colleagues. But none of the friendships were with members of the opposite sex.

My wife is telling me that she feels like our 19 year marriage has been �all about me� and now she is �living a life for her.� It�s obvious she wants independence and she tells me she wants to know �who I really am.� She claims my reservations with her behavior are a sign that I want/need to control her. Fact is, I don�t feel that way. I want her to have her independence. I just don�t want that independence to involve single, 33-year-old co-workers. She has admitted that her �friendship� with the co-worker has progressed to a point where she has discussed with him some of the problems in our relationship. This is a huge red flag for me. Sharing those kinds of intimate details with a member of the opposite sex seems dangerous and inappropriate. But maybe I�m wrong about that.

I want the marriage to work and have suggested we go to therapy. She has agreed to that, but I feel helpless�like a feather that�s being pushed along at the whim of her breeze. I don�t know if tomorrow she will come in and say she wants out, or give me a hug and tell me she loves me.

I�ve done a great deal of research and am convinced, based upon her behavior, that she may be starting or already in a female mid-life crisis. I�m reading that such a thing can have disastrous results on a marriage if not managed through communication and therapy.

Has anyone had to deal with these types of issues in the past? How did you manage it and what was the outcome? Anything I should be doing/thinking about?

Welcome to MB and sorry for your pain.

Have you read these?
Start Here First-Welcome Aboard

It's not a mid-life crisis - it's an affair.

You say you have some solid evidence of your wife's affair in your possession? Keep it and don't let on what you have anymore to your wife. Once you have enough evidence to convince a jury, then expose the affair to all your family and friends. Ask them for their help. Have you read the thread at the beginning of this forum? Make sure you carefully read through the Exposure 101 thread. Make a list of all the potential contacts for exposure.

When you expose, do so without forewarning your wife. And do it all at once. She will be very angry but your marriage can survive her anger. Your marriage will not survive if her affair continues.

Traveling jobs are terrible for marriages. Are you still traveling? You need to end your traveling. You can't live a transparent and integrated life with your wife if either of you is traveling.

Independence is also bad for marriage. A good marriage is all about INTERdependence, not going off and doing things that please ourselves at the expense of our spouse.

While you are getting your evidence, be in Plan A. Be the best husband you can be. Look good, smell good, meet any needs she will allow you to. Eliminate all your love busters!

Don't bring up your wife's affair to her. She knows she's having one, and all waywards lie about it.

Marital therapy is usually a disaster during an affair. It's because most MCs have no idea how addictive an affair is. They have no idea what to do. Instead of working on ending the affair and eliminating all contact, they work on very unhelpful things like communication and conflict resolution. Most MCs don't believe in romantic love in marriage either. You would be better served at this time by purchasing the book Surviving an Affair by Dr. Willard Harley. Make sure it's the newest edition.

Sorry for the reasons that brought you here.

Your W has become addicted to getting her needs met the wrong way (i.e. third person.) Yes it will be disastrous to your marriage.

I hate the term mid life crisis because it implies that hurtful and selfish behaviour is just a normal thing that we go through and that it will pass on its own. That is very dangerous thinking.


It is easy for a young single guy to travel and meet your wife. He could even put in for a transfer to be closer to your W. Have you met this guy?

What snooping tools do you have in place? Keylogger, GPS?

I have never met this guy, but have seen pictures of him on Facebook and Vine, etc. I was able to intercept texts and check phone records. That's what brought it to a head because she found out my ipad was connected to her imessage account. She swears there's nothing going on, but I'm being told by many people that I'm being played.

On another note....how does everyone define an "affair"? And which is worse? An emotional affair or a physical one?

I am scared. Exposure may be the right route, but how do you know when the line has been crossed and an "affair" has taken place?

Sir you need to focus on exposure.

You sound like a smart guy who is being gaslit. Do yourself a favor and click on the "How to Survive Infidelity" link in the yellow box on the right. Start at the beginning and read everything. Things will then start to make sense to you including what you need to do and why.

I don't know if I would call your W a player but rather an addict. Affairs both EA and PA are addictions.

Do NOT bring your wife here or try to educate her at this point.

This is your safe place for now.

Quietly install keyloggers on the computer, GPS, and spyware on her phone. I would be surprised if you found any further incriminating evidence without the spyware since your wife has already been alerted to the fact that you are watching her. Addicts are very clever in keeping their drug...that is the nature of an addiction.

This is absolutely solid advice. But there are some complicating factors. First, she uses her personal iphone to text. Again, I had my ipad connected to her imessage account, but when she processed an update and restarted the phone, it notified her via pop-up that her imessage account was connected to my ipad. I believe that's what started her thoughts to come up with a cockamamee story about "manufactured texts" to make me mad. Whatever. But the point is, she has already changed her Apple ID password and her phone is not jailbroken, so is there any way to gain access to her texts?

she also has a POS work phone that she rarely uses. She came home from a business trip last night and I was able to turn on the work phone, a Kyocera crappy phone that might as well be a flip-phone, and all of the "history" was empty. If she wanted to call the other dude on that phone, she could have done that and deleted the history. Since it is a work phone, I don't have acess to the bills. I have done that before...checked the history on the work phone...and there has been some history saved. So the fact that the history is empty bothers me.

On the personal cell, there has been no activity at all with the other guy...no texts or phone calls. Again, a clear sign that she may be finding other means to communicate. I know that the situation with this other guy has to be complicated. He lives in another state and they see each other very infrequently. I believe that if he was local, I would have already had a coronary. The stress of this is unbelievable.

I do believe what people are saying on here about an EA and/or PA being like a drug. But with her denials and potential sneakiness, and without a clear way to continue to track, I'm left to wonder what, if anything, will aid in breaking the addict of her addiction.

Can you put a voice activated recorder/GPS in her car?

Personally, I wish that I had installed spyware and sat back for a few days. It was worse than I had ever imagined and that info would have been really useful to me in KILLING it.


Study the EXPOSURE 101 link and prepare for exposure.

You need to be COOL CALM and in CONTROL of yourself.

Interesting. She works from a home office when she is not traveling and is on the phone a lot. I think when I travel, she may take/initiate calls from our bedroom, since they have had some calls late at night. Any ideas as to models or technologies I should be looking at to try and record these conversations?

My own FWH also started to travel a lot and have many business meetings which involved drinking with business associates. The meetings also started to go on later.


It turned out that it was not business meetings or business associates that he was drinking with.


It is possible that OM may not be who you think he is or maybe is able to travel more than you believe. You will not know until you start to verify what your wife is up to. Can you hire a PI? Have you installed a keylogger on the computer or GPS'd her car yet?


Rule number one around here: Believe only what you can personally verify.

How old are your kids?

Our kids include a 17 year old HS junior, and a 10 year old.

I'm able to keep tabs on the OM, in terms of his business travel schedule, as I have access to his FB account. Something my wife doesn't know I have. This helps, but is certainly not a sure fire way of knowing where people are.

As for GPS, not sure how effective that would be to put in her car. When she travels, in via airplane. And when she's home, she's home since she works from the house. Am thinking about a voice activated recorder to keep in the bedroom as to record any activity related to late night phone calls.

I agree you should only believe what you can verify, which is what is driving me nuts at this point.

In the meantime, as you gather evidence you should be in Plan A
Have you read about plan A?
Are you trying to meet her emotional needs while avoiding Love Busters?

Ok. so install a keylogger on her computer and VAR/GPS in her car. You are over thinking this. You never know what will turn up evidence until you try.

Right now you are completely blind and that is not a good position to be in. You especially want to be able to see your W actions after you expose.



Did you keep the texts and evidence that you have previously found?

Have you studied the Exposure 101 link? You need to get it right.

No....have not read about Plan A....link? THere is so much great information on here, I don't know where to start.

I have a keylogger installed on the home PC...that's how I have her PW to Facebook. And with that PW, I am able to keep tabs on the OM since his FB is locked down to only his friends (my wife is a friend of his on FB).

I have the texts that were sent...again, very clearly there is an EA that had developed, but nothing conrete on a PA...still, I believe that has taken place. She has also changed her Apple ID password already. There have been no phone calls or texts (according to the phone records) in over a week. Not sure it's possible for her to go that cold turney. So I am thinking she may be using the crappy work phone to talk to him. Her office phone (again, she works from the house) is able to be monitored via our cable provider and I have been checking that too. No calls there either.

Again, need to understand what "PlanA" is all about and other resources. I do like the idea of a voice activated recorder. Found the "Pen Recorder" that looks solid. This could be useful if I am away on a trip and she decided to talk to him in the evening from our bedroom (a likely spot in the house in the evening).

Hi Conchoroad! Welcome to Marriage Builders. I would get the book Surviving an Affair and read it as quickly as you can. It will help you understand the things we are telling you. In the meantime, here are some sources to read about Plan A:

What Are Plan A and Plan B?

Concho, can you hire a PI? A good PI can usually get the evidence in a couple of days.