First our story and then a question�.

My WW was in an affair for the past 4 years with OM at her work. Four years ago, I found a love note she had from him and was devastated. WW said it was over and that she and OM were just friends now. I said ok and could handle it (big mistake.)

The following year, I pull our phone records and see that WW is calling/receiving calls to/from a certain number multiple times a day and in the evenings when I am camping with my son�s Scout troop. I confront her with this and am told it is her female work friend she is calling. I don�t believe it and call the number the next morning from work and discover it is the OM�s phone number. I am devastated. I chicken out and do not leave a message. That night, WW tells me it is the OM�s number. That she lied about it because she knew I would freak out. That they are only friends, that she loves me, etc. Things get better between us, and I continue to keep my head in the sand.

Now, I have high anxiety and am always worrying, unhappy, etc. A good day was when I check the phone records and see that WW and OM did not call each other. Finally, 8 months go by and it is too much for me. I confront WW again with a print out this time of the phone records. I ask her why WW and OM are calling so much. She angrily says that she and the OM will no longer call each other. I check the records and it is true. In hindsight, I know now, this means the relationship went underground with more texting and using work instant messaging, and work email.

Fast forward two months ago. My wife tells me she got an facebook message from the OM�s wife telling her to leave her husband alone, and to stop having sex with him over the lunch hour. I tell WW that we will get through this and will support her. WW tell�s me this woman is crazy and that she did not have sex with OM. Two days later, we get a call at home from the OM�s wife telling me that my WW and the OM are in a sexual affair. That her husband confessed everything. I still do not believe that my WW is having sex with the OM � head still in sand.

Two days later, my WW and I go to see a friend who is a counselor, and my WW tell�s me that she has been having sex for the past two years with the OM. Sometimes at our house, sometimes at a female friend�s apartment. Needless to say, this devastates me and I realize that by ignoring the problem, it only got worse.

That evening, the OM�s wife does full exposure to everyone we and they know � friends, family, work, etc.

As of today, the OM left the company my WW works at. After talking a lot, my wife tells me that the sexual affair ended three months before the facebook message from the OM�s wife. WW said that she began falling in love with me at that time � yes, I was reading-up and doing plan A. I love that my WW chose me but and really pissed that I did not do the exposure, fight for our marriage by calling the OM, etc. I hate that I was passive.

My WW tells me that she is having a hard time forgiving herself and that she only feels happy when I am happy. So she is doing anything to make me happy. We are reading Love Busters and Her Needs, His Needs. - We like them both and feel closer to each other than we have in years.

My Question is this:
I now find myself wanting to find more evidence of the affair � text messages, phone messages, emails, etc. I did get some software and was able to recover some text messages. It nearly killed me to read those.
I know that once the affair is over, there has been exposure, a no contact letter sent to OM, that we are to not focus on the affair, but to look to the future and build a loving marriage.
However, I cannot help myself. I have a need to know every detail about the affair. I want to download her phone messages, and look at her work email. I know this is not healthy.How do I stop this behavior of mine?


[u][/u]

Welcome to MB.

I'm sorry that you were taken for a ride by your wife, and I'm sorry to say that you are still being.

Your wife could be the OW in my husband's affair, and you could be her husband. My role was that of the wife that exposed to you.

If you don't have any way of knowing that they are not in touch now, then they are in touch. It's easy; it takes place on the workplace phone and email. You are not monitoring that. If they were in a four-year affair (all four years of which were sexual, by the way) then they did not end their addiction to each other on exposure, and not even when he left his job.

It is not necessarily their old emails and texts that you need to see; it is their current ones.

Workplace contact is a serious problem for the BS. The only way I was able to solve it was by agreeing to my H's desire to take early retirement. Ordinarily, I would not have been enthusiastic for him to retire 4+ years early on less than half pay, when we had a 15 year-old son still to support, but I knew that getting him out of the workplace was the only way for me to know that contact had been cut. My H uses the family PC and has no mobile phone or other devices, and he is at home most of the day, as am I.

You do not have proof of their continued contact, but you need to assume that it is happening and find a way to track it. What I should have done when my H changed his travelling job to being desk-based, but stayed with the company, was tell the company what he had done and asked for their help in banning communication between him and OW. If they had sacked him for abusing company resources, as a result of my exposure, they would have been doing me a favour.

You need to expose to her company, ask for their help, and also find a way to spy on her phone and other devices.

How long have you been married? How old are your children? They need to be told about this, as do both sets of parents. Are you in touch with OMW? Do you know if she is able to monitor her H?

Full transparency is part of the extraordinary precautions. So is a polygraph.
All MUST be disclosed to you as part of the healing if YOU want it to be disclosed.
If she is not willing to do this, then you will not recover and it proves she is not serious.
In my opinion it is a slippery slope, you may find out more than you bargained for and may change your mind.
But look where the "head in sand" approach got you.

You will need to make some drastic changes to avoid triggers, like moving away. Your wife was sleeping with this POS all over town including your own home. You will be triggered everytime you see the place of work, her friends house, heck your own bed.

Numb,

Make a list of all your questions, everything you can imagine, who what where when why how, other affairs, etc.

Get your WW to make a detailed time line for her affair, in a notebook with space for additional details as request them.

After doing so get a polygraph for your WW where the operator asks your WW if she answered the questions truthfully.

Yes you have a right to get every detail of the affair, the OM and your WW can no longer share secrets between themselves, your WWs secret second life must come to a complete end.

If the OM was your WWs boss you should consider suing the company, and getting sexual harassment placed on his permanent record.

You should get STD testing and possibly DNA testing for your children, as their may be previous affairs.

God Bless
Gamma

You need to listen to SugarCane. A four-year affair is a powerful addiction. You need methods to verify no contact. If you do not take aggressive measures to insure no contact, it will happen again. Don't believe the affair is over just because you want it to be. Make certain.

Schedule a polygraph test.

The polygraph part of your post is not true.

When Dr Harley talks about transparency, he means today and going forward. Each spouse should have full access to the other's means of communication from the time recovery starts, and for good. However, a polygraph can only be used to find out about the past.

On the subject of finding out about the affair history, Dr Harley recommends that the BS asks whatever he needs and wants to know about the main details of the affair. "Main details" means essentially, how the affair was conducted, so that specific means of access can be closed, and how far it went. So, the BS needs to know if sex took place at work, or in hotels, or in the marital home of either, and if they went on trips using work as a cover - that kind of logistical detail. If it was an EA, how was that maintained - by mobile phone? By Internet?

The BS needs to know these kinds of details because he needs to be able to know that these means of contact are not being used any more. For example, if the affair partners maintained contact through church activities, the BS and WS will need to move churches. If the AP was a work colleague, the WS will need to change jobs, and possibly the couple will need to move from their home.

Dr Harley is not insistent about the BS finding out every single details of every act that was ever undertaken, and every word that was ever spoken. That is partly because - well, how could you do that with a four-year affair? That would mean talking about the affair for years, and obsessing about it for even longer. The strategy behind Dr Harley's work with affairs and with any other marital problem is to learn about, and eliminate, the behaviours that are causing problems in the marriage, but then to leave the past in the past, and make changes today and in the future.

To that end, a polygraph is only needed is the BS has reason to believe that he or she has not been told the truth about something specific, and if recovery is conditional upon that truth. A polygraph, in any case, cannot be used to tell the BS about the details of emails and text messages, which is what this poster is obsessing about.

I just want to point out to the original poster that the strategy underlined is not recommended by Dr Harley, and indeed, he cautioned me against going after that level of detail. I spoke to him personally about that, so I can tell you what he would recommend. I had a 3.5-year PA to deal with, followed by 5 years of workplace contact that I could not monitor. I had a heck of a lot of detail that I wanted to know, and I asked Dr H about demanding it. The gist of what he recommended is in my post above.

SugarCane spells it out very well. Thank you for the clarification, that is what i meant about polygraph to find the truth about the past.
Didnt type it up correctly.

Bottom line it is going to take time to overcome the urges to know everything.

I would be cautious that your wife is telling you the truth without independent verification. For instance, do you know by your own inquiries(not your wife telling you) that the OM does not work there anymore?
Seems odd that she is not wicked angry and experiencing withdrawls, especially the depth and duration of the affair.

Yes, it could very well be going deeper underground.
There is no way to tell other than keeping tabs on various routes it might take.

Every BS's level of detail to know is different.

A polygraph is not suited to where was the WW on the night of at 8 pm.

A polygrapher asks a long series of questions. Then follows up with did the WS lie or omit anything on those answers. The benefit is not getting specific answers but getting to catch the WS lying which then pressures them to be honest when the tester asks follow up questions.

Another benefit for the test is that on the way to the test many a WS tells a lot more about the affair on the ride to the test because they do not want to be caught lying and as part of continued trickle truthing. Where the WS offers up a bit more info then claiming they told all so lets cancel the test to prevent the whole story coming out.

Also limiting what a BS finds out. Sets up them finding out something about the affair that is was a deal breaker. It is now 10 years later and the new revelation comes out without the BS making effort. Which causes the BS to now seek a divorce.

Given this^^^


I would not believe this^^^^.

There is no way for a BS to possibly know every single detail but if you want more details that is understandable. Recovery will not possibly begin if you are missing out on key details or if you have some questions that are eating at you. If you WW is in fact remorseful and wants you to be happy as she says she should be willing to take a poly and fill in the blanks for you.

Sorry for your hurt, numb3rs.

Please answer these questions.

Sugar_Cane has given you very good advice. You don't want to torture yourself but you should find out "main" details and specific details that you want to know while also knowing there is no way to know every single thing either. Make a list of questions you have and see if some can be eliminated.

When was Dday?

Thank you all for your help. I am going to be closely monitoring all of my wife's communications. She gave me the passwords to all her accounts (work e-mail, home e-mail, etc.) I was able to VPN into her work account and even see all the Instant messages she sends/receives at work.

WW told me that thinking back, she now see's how much of a jerk and inconsiderate the POS OM was. How he was really a narcissist. WW would ask OM what he thought of the weight she had lost, her hair cut, etc.. and the OM would not give the compliment and instead ask WW what she thought of the weight OM had lost, etc.

In fact, in the conversations I had with the OM's wife, she said that the OM told her my WW was "easy" and "convenient" for him. That OM never loved her, but just "used" her. That my WW was an "easy lay" for OM.

I do believe that I have been building up my LB with WW because my wife was becoming more and more interested in my needs, doing thing I like to do, holding my hand in public, kissing me for no reason, etc.

I also believe my WW greatly backed off in her relationship with this POS OM a few months ago because she now sends/receives about 500 less text messages a day. I have checked and none of here current texts for the last fthree months are to anyone I do not know.

I also believe this because the OM told his wife that he and my WW had sex in my house the Monday he returned from a business trip (the week before all of the exposure happened.) I know this is false because I was home the entire day he says it happened. I believe OM told this to his wife to hurt/break apart the relationship WW and I were building back-up.

Just last night WW told me that for the three months before the exposure, the OM was pressuring her to begin their relationship again and to meet for sex. WW showed me the texts and e-mails verifying this.

The OM no longer works there. He packed his stuff up last week. This has been verified by other people I know who work there.

WW said that her relationship with the OM was not for a solid four years. That is was on again/off again during that time. WW said it would be off for periods of time when I asked her about the phone records, when the OM would take her for granted, etc. These periods of no contact (phone, text, etc) would last for a few weeks.

In closing, my Wife and I are enjoying the book "His needs/her needs," and have read "Surviving the affair." We are doing all the things the books say. I know it is going to be a tough couple of years to get past this, but with the constant monitoring, and the building of love we both have, I hope the time will pass quickly!

We have been married for 21 years, and have two children (9 and 14.) WW and I told them both about the affair. Very tough, but glad we did it. Both sets of parents know of the affair as well from the exposure.

As for the OMW, we both have each other's email/cell numbers. She is monitoring her H's email, texts, phone, etc. In my last conversation with her, I said I wish to have no more contact with her. The contact just makes me relive the affair again, and again.

However, I did say that if ether of us sees something suspicious (text, email, phone message, note, GPS location, etc.) that we will contact each other.

Also, Dday was Dec 1.

You need to be aware that you will be triggered repeatedly. You will have to be ready for that, i am no expert in dealing with them. The easiest way is too move away.

Have you talked about just compensation with your wife?

We both have talked about just compensation.
We both agreed to follow the Policy of Joint Agreement and the Policy of Radical Honesty.

Numb,

So are you planning on a polygraph for your WW?

How far away is the OM?

God Bless
Gamma

It seems, from what you have written, that you are happy that all contact between this pair is over, and you are confident that you are on the MB path to recovery. Is that a correct summary?

I still feel the need for caution, but that is because of the affair I had to deal with, which I am projecting onto your situation. A four-year affair is relatively rare on this forum, and the similarities between your wife's affair and my husband's, ring many alarm bells for me.

My H and his OW "broke up" a few times, too. On the first occasion, her H discovered her flirting on the phone to my H (he did not hear, through the glass door, what she was saying, but he watched her twirling her hair etc) and he blew up at her, took her phone away and locked her in the house for a week. She still found a way to call my H and beg him to take her away from her marriage. When he told her that he wouldn't, she found a way to meet him at a cafe near her house and beg him some more. They then found a way to spend the night together as part of the "second honeymoon" in Venice that her H arranged for him and his wife, to get them over the affair. She arrived for the "honeymoon" a day early while her H finished work, and she and my H spent the night together in the very bed that her H would later sleep in, with her. That night together was their "goodbye" and they did not contact each other for weeks...until they did, and the meetings in hotels and at her house were back on. There were other "break-ups" too, when I found out about the affair. One of these lasted about 4 months - but the affair resumed after that.

When I finally exposed to her H, they had another "break up" and indeed, could not see each other again for 5 years, because both gave up their travelling jobs to stay in their marriages. Yet I had another D Day after 5 years, because travel again became possible for her. They had been phoning each other all that time, and the affair was never over.

I'm telling you all this because I want you to be aware of how likely it is for contact to continue, as long as she is out of your home. It doesn't matter that OM saw her as "easy" and "convenient" for him; my H said the same thing about his OW, but that didn't stop him falling in love and risking his home and family for her. He dropped her as soon as either her H or I found out about the affair (several times in total), but given the chance, he would always have sex again, and long loving phone calls, with her.

Equally, it does not matter that she is putting on a loving, devoted face to you. This might not mean anything. My H's OW was expert at doing that to her H to keep him off the scent. She had to do that because my H (and the other men she had had affairs with) would not break up their marriages for her, and she would not leave her marriage on her own.

There was something keeping your wife in an affair with a man who basically wanted sex, and that was that he convinced her that he loved her, and she was in love with him. She was hoping that he would leave his wife for her. That feeling does not simply go away on D Day.

I know all about my H's OW and her "loving" behaviour because I had several phone conversations with her H after I exposed, and I found out a lot of information. I tried to warn him that he was being taken for a fool, but he would not believe that the love he was getting from his now remorseful, but multiple-cheating wife, was not genuine. She spun stories to him about my H wanting her to have a baby, buying her an engagement ring and begging her to leave her H - stories that I could not believe because, for one thing, my H did not want any more children! He was over 50, and not the world's most patient father of toddlers. He loved our two, but no way would he have wanted to ruin his wild sex life, if he ran off with OW, by having a baby with her. No way! He was in it for sex and flattery, not babies!

I gave up trying to convince OWH, and I did not want him to leave her, anyway. However, in late 2014 he contacted me to say that after I finally ended contact between my H and hers, in 2011, she had affairs with several other men and was now living with one, and trying to divorce him and claim half their assets. He had no idea, while the affairs were going on, that they were taking place.

Be wary, please.