lightwalker, one of the most glaring problems I see is that you are not holding him accountable. You have set the bar so low that he is just living down to your expectations. If you won't hold him accountable, I don't see how a complete stranger - a coach - can do that.. Does your husband refuse to follow these very basic extraordinary precautions?

But you will still have to separate if you cant snoop, can't do EPs and can't do UA time - you understand that right? That it will not be a matter of choice? Without these things it simply isn't possible to sustain it. People have tried!

Think of your marriage like a house:

EPs are the locks on the door.
UA time is time spent in your house.


Now - lots of people take on recovery willing only to do some tarting up and decorative work on their house. They choose new curtains, they put up pictures. They might stop actively destroying their house in this phase.

They talk about how much 'better' that is - but anything would be better than where they have been.

At the end of the day, you will still have a house with no locks on the doors, open to any intruder.... how long will that last?

Plus you don't spend any time in it anyway. Would you buy a house you could only spend a handful of hours per week in?

The house might not be getting actively destroyed but your improvements and hopes will not survive such neglect!

MelodyLane,

I know the bar has been set way too low for so many years, and from the MB perspective the marriage is not even close. I hope the coach might be able to motivate my H. Sometimes a stranger might be able encourage better than others, just as this forum does. Reading up on the MB accountability program they stress their effectiveness in working with reluctant spouses, so I'm hoping. The UA time is the key. My H is not refusing, we are just not getting in that 15 plus, but way more than ever before. He no longer engages in the IB behavior of leaving me for out of town recreation on a regular basis. We are now spending all of our weekends together. He no longer even considers that IB. If after working together with a coach the marriage is not up to MB standards then I know there would have to be a separation because I would never be able to let go of all of the hurt and resentment the nightmare A has caused.

Indiegirl,

Your use of the house in disrepair without locks is an apt description of the situation. I know I will have to be able to snoop effectively if I am ever to feel safe. Because those EPs are so essential, I understand SusieQ's (and any other posters) reasoning to discontinue posting on my thread if I am not willing to follow through on this part of the plan.

This is a problem I am still wrestling with. If it were not illegal I would have the spyware on now even though I would be terrified I would bungle it. If his company found out, they should thank me. If my H found out, he would be crazy to out me with the way he has misused his phone he would be ashamed if they knew. It is not civil authority I am concerned about, but the much higher authority. My religious faith specifically requires I abide by the civil laws. So it is a matter of my own conscience and no one can help me with this. I have to decide.

The only other choice is for my H to leave the job which would probably mean retiring a few years early. We would take a huge hit financially. It would be my financial future probably impacted the most. The reality is unless you are super healthy after a certain age you have fewer options. It's harder to see that when one is young. So I am weighing it. Of course divorce would be the very worst option from a financial standpoint.

Snooping and the other EP's would be possible when he leaves that job. I want to love my husband again and feel safe. I do know that will require snooping, EP's and UA time.

Is there really a law which prohibits you, a married woman, from seeing something your husband (one flesh with you), has freely been given access to? How is that law phrased then?

Ghandi and Martin Luther King kept to a higher authority one saying "An unjust law is itself a species of violence" the other saying we had a civil duty to disobey unjust laws.

I don't know what religion you follow, but it sounds like they would have found Nazi Germany rather problematic.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not encouraging lawlessness per se, just pointing out that your religion probably has rules regarding preventing violence, protecting fidelity, self defence and tackling evil generally. In situations where some small bylaws contradict the bigger rules of morality, surely your religion allows you to choose a priority. It's unthinkable your religion compels you to be cheated on passively, or to gas Jews on command. I rather think the strict adherence to civil code here is more likely to be your own interpretation born of fear.

If however you are sure that the snooping is unconscionable, then your remaining option is to separate unless he can voluntarily provide transparency by leaving the job.

It's your only option anyway really. He isn't providing the 15 hours on four set days a week for four hours (14 hours or less is the same as not bothering at all). Until he is doing that BEFORE he does anything else (sleep eat, go to work) he isn't remorseful or healing you.

If he's not remorseful or healing you, you aren't hanging in there for recovery.

You are hanging in there waiting for the false recovery to be revealed with another Dday.

He needs to be remorseful today, fully on board today, or you need to separate today.

Indiegirl,

I hadn't brought up the religious aspect before because I thought it might be controversial for the very reasons you mention. I would fault no one of any religion, even my own, for following their conscience on this one either way, and I know there is no one on this board advocating lawlessness.

I'm not of the faith of either of the admirable individuals you mention. My faith does ask believers to follow the laws of the land in which they reside, but it is not asking for blind adherance. If for instance there were a law advocating murder, that law would be in conflict with the higher spiritual laws and of course it would not be followed. I don't think I can apply that principle to this particular situation. It's a personal decision I have to make. The snooping itself isn't the issue, it makes sense.

There is a law prohibiting you from looking at your husband's devices? The only actual law I know of would be HIPPA.

Hi Apples,

I don't think spyware would be illegal if his phone, vehicle and computer belonged to our family. In my circumstance the company my H works for owns all of it. It is my understanding in that case spyware would be illegal.

Then he should request VPN access to the system andid only use your personal computer.

Also, why did I think your husband owned par tofu the company? Am I remembering correctly?

Apparently 'part of' is no longer a real word for autocorrect.

Is there an issue of proprietary information? Most companies can monitor an employees computer remotely. Does his work know what has happened?

I don't believe there would be anything HIPPA related, and nothing proprietary. I'm not savy with anything tech related; what does the VPN access refer to?

The A was over for more than a year and the OW was no longer an employee there by the time I learned of it. The A was never exposed to the company. I wish they had been remotely monitoring, but they sure haven't seemed to be doing it. The stuff I saw certainly would not be fit for their "family owned, family centered business" (those were the words used in a professional magazine by the then HR Director who was also the OW!)

Tofu Company? Funny! No, he's not a part-owner in the company.

Lightwalker, he could expose to his company and request access on your behalf then?

I've been thinking about doing this from the very beginning. I'm thinking of exposing her to the company, eventually. I think they should know about the situation though she no longer works there. I believe the facts of the situation should be a part of her employee records. As an HR administator, her position affords her more opportunity to be discussing personal problems of a confidential nature, in a confidential setting--a perfect opportunity to prey on those who are vulnerable in a perfect setting for starting an A. I believe the woman is on her 4th marriage and has a reputation as being very promiscous. She shouldn't be working in that position.

What is stopping me is the fact that I don't have the spyware and other EP's in place. She was there for many years and has a lot of friends still working there. I am afraid somehow she could catch wind of all of this and my nagging feeling is telling me it could trigger her to contact my H to find out what is going on. If the company agreed to allowing him to change his contact info, and allowing me the acccess so I could be monitoring effectively I wouldn't worry as much about this, but if they didn't allow it, which I suspect they wouldn't, I would just be opening up the potential for more problems, I think.

Once my H is out of there one way or another and I am using the spyware, I would like to expose the A to the company. I have already contacted the HR professional organization she belongs to in order to find out their professional standards and sanctions. Unfortunately, according to their policies the report would have to have been made by an HR organization member within a certain time frame. I think I may furnish them with the info anyway at some point in time.

The whole issue of my H's job may take care of itself. He just did a rather odd, off-the- wall kind of thing which offended the company CEO (he says and does that kind of thing at work as well as at home) so maybe the issue is going to resolve itself...

So the fence is down. And the cows are out...... eventually the cows will probably come back to the barn if the fence gap is still open.
So if the cows are at the barn that resolve the issue? No, it does not.

To put it another way.....You are comforting yourself at the campfire while the house burns down.

You aren't looking at the big picture. Get out there. Fix the fence, and fight the fire. i.e. Set the bar high.
It sounds like you are hoping you can sit and wait for the issues to resolve themselves and that's not the way it works. You are running yourself ragged paying and paying and continuing to pay the price for not following a clear cut plan.

Why not set the bar higher? For example, if you can't monitor work stuff then the job has to go for you to stay and not because he got fired. There's no EP in taking the easy way out of the job. You are hoping to wait until it gets easier. It doesn't, you just have to perpetually restart the plan from the beginning until you are willing to make your marriage priority. As long as you stay noncommittal about what needs to happen recovery will be equivocal.

What is happening with the polygraph?

So the fence is down. And the cows are out...... eventually the cows will probably come back to the barn if the fence gap is still open.
So if the cows are at the barn that resolve the issue? No, it does not.

To put it another way.....You are comforting yourself at the campfire while the house burns down.

You aren't looking at the big picture. Get out there. Fix the fence, and fight the fire. i.e. Set the bar high.
It sounds like you are hoping you can sit and wait for the issues to resolve themselves and that's not the way it works. You are running yourself ragged paying and paying and continuing to pay the price for not following a clear cut plan.

Why not set the bar higher? For example, if you can't monitor work stuff then the job has to go for you to stay and not because he got fired. There's no EP in taking the easy way out of the job. You are hoping to wait until it gets easier. It doesn't, you just have to perpetually restart the plan from the beginning until you are willing to make your marriage priority. As long as you stay noncommittal about what needs to happen recovery will be equivocal. [/quote buildsherhouse,

Wishful thinking on my part, yes. My comment was made with a sick smile on my face. I know the issue won't resolve itself; there will be no easy solution here, but I am so tired of hard--as in being between a rock and a hard place for so long. The solution would be for H to quit the job, but that will be making a decision with potentially huge financial consequences for me and no time left to make up the difference. That is a tough decision for me to make. I have got to quit waivering back and forth. Thank you for your encouragement.

I found a polygrapher I would feel confidence in. H and I discussed it and he agreed.I have a call in to set up the appt. just waiting for a call back.

VPN access means he would take a device you guys own (like a personal laptop or tablet) to work and have the IT people there install software on it that allows him to connect remotely to whatever tech resources his company uses and do his work on your guys device instead of a company computer. That way you could key log it since its yours.

It will depend on the company culture as to whether they agree to this but most companies typically allow this.

Ah ha! ok. When my H sent the email to their IT guy asking about the possibility of his being able to access his work computer remotely, the guy sent back an email saying he couldn't do it, that it would require a special software. We took that as a no answer. Knowing companies typically do this, I will have him follow up on this, especially since it might solve the problem. I could have it done on my device since that is the only one we have and I could put the spyware on it. I will follow up on this. Thank you Axslinger!!!