i'm new here, found this forum out of sheer desperation. my wife and i have been married since 2005, and had many ups and downs. i struggle with depression and have been less than an ideal husband. last may, she struck up a friendship with a colleague at a conference. they began texting, talking, and meeting for lunch when she was in town (which she would go out of her way to arrange). I found out about it by accident, when her facebook account was open. i questioned her, and she said he was a friend. i then went into detective mode, and found out there were hundreds of texts in a 6 week period and phone calls up to 90 minutes. i confronted her, and she said they were friends but she hid it because she knew it was wrong to be talking with him so much. she said she'd cut off all communication and we began counseling.

fast forward 4 weeks, and she had another conference. she said he wouldn't be there. my intuition was tugging me, and i put a VAR in her car. i heard her telling a friend on the phone that the guy would be there, but she wasn't going to tell me. when she got home, i told her i knew, and she confessed that she had still been talking to the guy all along, using burner phones and landlines at work (because she knew i couldn't check those phone records).

we've been in continued counseling, but it's hard for me to see a time when i can trust her. she says nothing physical happened, and i believe her. she even says it wasn't an "emotional" affair because they weren't sharing feelings about each other; she just like to talk to him about silly things and i wasn't available for that.

if any of you have come through something like this, i would be eternally grateful for any words of wisdom that will help me have some hope. i realize this may seem trivial compared to actual physical affairs that many of you have endured, but the betrayal of trust feels just as significant. thanks for any help.

Get out of counseling, unless it is Marriage Builder based.

The first thing a wayward says when they are busted about a relationship they know is wrong = "He/She is just a friend".

All waywards lie, lie, lie, you can't trust anything they say. She has lied to you repeatedly already, why would you trust her now. As a rule waywards will downplay their involvement, in other words, "we were just talking" usually means "we kissed", or "we kissed only once" usually means "we had sex"

IMO, men and women can't be friends like that, the sex/connection thing always gets in the way.

You need to read the threads about Extraordinary Precautions and get those implemented.

i hired a private investigator for the last conference she attended, where he was in attendance despite her telling me he wouldn't be. They were in the same hotel together, and she didn't even go out with him to dinner, much less go to his room. i have the pictures and narrative from the PI to verify all of that. i think if they were having a physical affair, that would have been a risk-free opportunity to be together, and they were not, which corroborates her version of the facts.

Plus, i used tenorshare to pull up the deleted texts, and they were all silly back and forth about their job and trivial things. there was nothing romantic, sexual, or anything to indicate that they were having a physical relationship.

So this OM is a coworker, is that right? Is he married?

Has this been exposed to anybody?

Are these conferences overnight?

If she is not emotionally connected to him, she would not have been hiding him from you.

x2

She is busted talking to a 'friend' too much, and then protects that 'friendship' through lies and deceit, even while her marriage is in jeopardy and marriage counseling?

This is way more than a friend.

Have you considered having her take a polygraph? Many posters on here (including myself) have discovered the real truth by doing so.

It sounds like you are willing to do what needs to be done to discover the truth, by installing a VAR and hiring a PI. You can make an appointment with a polygraph examiner, and give your W a list of questions. Your questions can be anything. Then decide with the examiner the select few to verify at the actual test. In this way you can ask a lot of questions, even though you can only ask a couple on the test, because she will not know WHAT is going to be on the test.

I am guessing some added details will come out. But if not, at least you know and can move forward with the truth.

If you believe she is telling the truth, why did she use a burner phone? NOBODY does that unless they are hiding something very bad. They might have had to disguise their texts on her regular phone because his wife might be watching.


If she has cut everything off(she lied to you once about that), then she should have no problem implementing the Extraordinary Precautions. Including a polygraph, quitting that job, writing a no contact letter, etc and exposing.

he's a co-worker in another city. they both work in the same field but not the same office. yes, the conferences are over night.

sorry, forgot to answer this one: yes, it's been exposed. i called his wife, and she said she wasn't surprised, that he's had affairs before. she's watching him like a hawk i'm sure

i agree in theory that the burner indicates serious deception, but i had the recorder in her car while she was using it. i heard her talk to her girlfriend about him, and i heard her talk to him (i didn't know if was him at the time; she admitted it during our confrontation). The call with him was not "hey i can't wait to see you, etc" it was just very mundane stuff about the conference, and whether he was going out with the group that night. He was, and she didn't go. She had no way to know that i was recording her at the time, much less trailing her with a PI, so if there was something more going on i think i would have learned it then.

That just means he is experienced and knows better than to talk to her about anything incriminating on her "real" phone.

A married woman does not call a man in secret to tell him "I can't wait to see you" WITHOUT there being an emotional connection. [/quote]

Sorry if that wasn't clear: she DID NOT say "i can't wait to see you" or anything like that. In fact she didn't spend any time alone or in a group with him, which i know because of the PI. I heard the conversations through the recorder, and then had the PI to monitor what i could not.

I'm sorry I misread that.

Still, it is very suspecious that she will make these phone calls in secret.

And the fact that he has had affairs before ...

Will she cut off all contact with him?

He sounds like an OM on the prowl, looking for vulnerable married women.

Yes, she has cut off all contact, and he has expressed the same desire (to cut off contact).

How about not spending any more nights apart? How can you be sure they won't have any contact if she was calling him at work and he has her work number?

This is what is confusing me. She said she cut off contact, but 4 weeks later she was seeing him at a conference.

How do you know she has cut off contact?

Did she send a No Contact letter? Did she change all her contact info?

Does she work with him?