Hi All. Here's the story:

My wife and I have been married for almost 14 years. Most of that has been happy, but busy. We have 4 beautiful and great kids. She is the only true love that I have ever had.

I noticed a couple of months ago that she seemed suspicious with her cell phone. On 3/26, when she fell asleep I grabbed her phone, which she was basically sleeping with, and decided to look at her text messages. There was a number that didn't have contact info so I began to read through those texts. It didn't take long to realize that she was having sex with this person. I immediately had a high suspicion of who the individual is, and was able to confirm through the names of his children in the texts that he was her former boyfriend from high school. Her "first love".

After letting it simmer in me for a few days, I confronted her about it. She didn't hide anything, and answered every question that I could come up with. I found out that it has been an off and on again affair for over 2 years. I didn't lose my cool, but did show her how very hurt I was. The part that hurts me the most is that when she started talking to him, we were doing really well in our marriage. We had probably gotten as close as we had ever been. She agrees that we were doing really well also. She wasn't cold to me and I could tell she was really bothered by the hurt in me. She did tell me that she had developed really strong feelings for him. She hasn't actually said that she was in love with him, but that she did tell him that she loved him. I believe that she is/was in love with him. She did give me the "ILYBINILWY" crap.

I have asked her "why" but she doesn't have an answer. She can't think of what I wasn't giving her that she needed. She said it just started as a simple reconnecting on FB, with very occasional messages, to playing Words with Friends and messaging through there, to texting, and then meeting. Poor boundaries with him obviously plus inner feelings that were never fully extinguished. She's always had a soft spot for POSOM, but has always told me that she chose me and loved me more. The last 2 years, while the A was on and off, our marriage has not been great. We both kind of withdrew, and became more like roommates/friends. Got along well, but had no passion.

She was in a fog initially. It blindsided the both of us. She was really shocked that I found out and I was devastated. She had no intention of ending the marriage, but also had not planned on ending the affair. I told her that I wanted to be married to her and create a great marriage again, but that he had to be completely out of her life. This was hard on her. She talked about separating to "get her head straight". I told her that I didn't want her to leave.

After sending the worst ever NC text to the POSOM on 4/1, I made her send another one that I agreed to that same night. Between the two texts, the POSOM emailed her and told her that he wanted us to work on the marriage. She showed me the email. He is the victim of his ex's OM and knows the hurt that it caused him and his kids. He said that he had become just like the person he hates. I believe that he actually does feel this way, but that also he doesn't have the same feelings for her that she did for him. I could tell that in the texts I read. She was the one that was trying to pull feelings out of him. It was quite pathetic honestly and does make me angry that she was so stupid. He wanted his little fun with the woman who never fully got over him, but once it was to the point of breaking up a family he didn't want to hang. I made contact with him through email a couple days later and he actually apologized to me and said how he got caught up in something he shouldn't have. He promised to stop all contact and let us work it out.

I have monitored everything I can to make sure that she has kept to her promise of no contact. I actually trust him a little more than her right now. The first 3 weeks were rough with her being broken hearted. We did get out of town for a couple nights that were nice, but it seemed to make her withdrawals harder once we were back for a few days. She has been very open with me about her struggles and her feelings.

Sorry this is so long. More to come....

Have you changed all contact info so that OM cannot contact either of you anymore?

Has Facebook been disconnected?

Welcome to MB. I'm sorry to hear about these events in your marriage.

The passages that I underlined concern me; under what circumstances did your wife have sex with this man? Does he live close by? The fact that she became unhappy again when you got back from your trip makes it clear that being at home where the affair took place is a big problem to her.

I think you need to make vigorous efforts to move away from your area as soon as possible. Even if OM lives some distance away and travelled to see her (or she to see him), being back where she was living when the affair took place is depressing your wife.

Prisca's questions about FB and NC are very important, so please answer those, too.

Hi Hurtman, welcome to Marriage Builders. I am sorry for the reasons that have brought you here but you are in the right place.

A couple of questions:

1. has the affair been exposed to your children and close family? This is a critical first step towards recovery

2. is the OM married? Have you independently verified his marital status?

3. where does this guy live and work? Is he close by?

4. has your wife deleted her facebook, changed her email address and otherwise shut off all avenues of contact to prevent him from getting through to her?

Most marriages do not ever recover from affairs. They just sweep it under the rug and then limp along in a crippled state of the pre=affair marriage. The result is often repeat affairs and intense resentment. You don't have to be like that if you will implement the MB program in your marriage.

The first step, of course, is to affair your marriage. This is outlined in the book, Surviving an Affair, which you need to get asap:

From Surviving an Affair, pg 66-67

The extraordinary precautions do more than end marriage-threatening affairs; they help a couple form the kind of relationship they always wanted.

These recommendations may seem rigid, unnecessarily confining, and even paranoid to those who have not been the victim of infidelity. But people like Sue and Jon, who have suffered unimaginable pain as a result of an affair that spun out of control, can easily see their value. For the inconvenience of following my advice, Sue would have spared herself and Jon the very worst experience of their lives.


Checklist for How Affairs Should End

_____The unfaithful spouse should reveal information about the affair to the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should make a commitment to the betrayed spouse to never see or talk to the lover OP again.

_____The unfaithful spouse should write a letter to the lover OP ending the relationship and send it with the approval of the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should take extraordinary precautions to guarantee total separation from the lover OP:

_____Block potential communication with the lover OP (change e-mail address and home and cell phone numbers, and close all social networking accounts; have voice messages and mail monitored by the betrayed spouse).

_____Account for time (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a twenty-four-hour daily schedule with locations and telephone numbers).

_____Account for money (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a complete account of all money spent).

_____Spend leisure time together.

_____Change jobs and relocate if necessary.

_____Avoid overnight separation.

_____Allow technical accountability.

_____ Expose affair to family members, clergy, and/or friends.

In addition to all the good questions. Have you and your WW been tested for STD/I?

So the first step will be to ask her to delete facebook entirely. Getting some spyware on her computer and cell phone will be a good idea but more importantly you must follow the checklist of extraordinary precautions if you want to make it.

She needs to delete facebook and change her email and cell phone #s.


You might find yourself triggered by going to the gym now since that is where she met the OM. Is this the same gym?

If you want to recover your marriage then you will need to change all contact info. Facebook will also need to be shut down and blocked. The risk of contact resuming is too great for your recovery and too big a temptation for your wife to handle.

Have you exposed the affair?

TXHusband35, I saw your post where you said you thought exposure would cause trouble and should be skipped. You can't skip that step, sorry. It is the most important first step towards recovery.

I see we already gave you all this same advice. You didn't like the advice so you started up a new thread and are shopping opinions. The problem with that strategy is that we are not giving you "opinions." We are giving you Dr Harley's tried and true advice. It works.

If you aren't going to take the advice, we can't help you.

Here is your other thread under another alias: TxHusband35

It's best to stick to one thread and one alias, TXHusband.

I am sorry about the other thread and the other alias. I will only post on this thread going forward and under this name only.

I wasn't being truthful in the other thread about exposure. There has been no exposure and a month into this with us trying to work on this marriage, I want to know how to handle that. Going behind her back and exposing wildly would crush her. Should I try and get her on board with exposing to the kids and close family together?

No. Exposure should be done without her foreknowledge. Tell her afterwards that you have done this. See, our goal is to save your marriage, your goal is to avoid upsetting her at any and all cost. The latter will not save your marriage.

If you tell her in advance about Exposure of her affair, she will scurry around and paint you as a controlling psycho to build up her spun story.

You NEED to do this covertly and with immediate precision and impact, without delaying or trickling out the exposure.

YES, she will get pizzed off at you Revealing The Truth, but then you continue to Plan A and let her know you both can have a healthy and romantic relationship AFTER the affair is done and a NC, No Contact LETTER is hand written by her and approved by you for YOU to mail out.

Do you need assistance on how and what to say in the exposure letters?

Do you need assistance on the NC Letter?

LTL

I think in your old thread you were told you could get exposure steps from ML's signature line. Your waffling out of fear...again! Exposure isn't that hard to do. I did my exposure in 2 days. One day of gathering friends, family, people of influence and the second day of actually contacting them. Your dragging this out for no reason at all.

When will you be exposing?