Hi

I have the misfortune to be here as a result of my wife's affair with a colleague at work.

It began earlier this year and I discovered it in April. I told her I knew and we discussed her stopping. Unfortunately I had not been on this site at the time and not surprisingly she did not stop and I caught her a few times since but we have not really known what to do about it.

The last known occasion was the beginning of July. We then went on holiday and she spent a long time "deciding what to do". She told me she decided to make us work as she could not imagine a life without me.

So we have gone on for the last 2 months in a way to try to make it work. She does not like talking about it but I have tried to have a conversation about how we are progressing every week or ten days. It is always me that starts the conversation. She admitted the other day that she is finding it difficult and that it seems we are not making progress. Over the last 2-3 weeks I have been getting the same bad feeling in the gut and I think there is a high probability that the affair is ongoing.

I am monitoring her personal iPhone and her emails and she is aware of it. She does however have a company phone to which I do not have access.

That is the background to date. Until now I had not told anyone about it. Yesterday, having been on this site, I exposed it to her sister, parents and friends. I have not yet told my parents but I will do so. I thought she might be upset by this but she was not. In fact she thanked me for trying to help her. We did, however, have a more in-depth conversation than usual and she admitted that one of the reasons for her indifference over the last 2 months is that she does not know if/how she can love me given what she has done and how she feels/felt for him.

I intend to up the game with alternative snooping. I am also starting to read Surviving the Affair.

I have told her she needs to find a new job, and we have worked together on a new CV for her. However, she has not left yet or given a resignation letter.

We have not yet had a discussion on putting in place extraordinary measures but will do so this weekend.

So to my questions:

1. Now I have exposed, is that the start of Plan A, or do we only move into that if she agrees to follow the extraordinary measures?

2. The advice in the book/site suggests that, for a man, Plan A should last 6 months or so. From when would does this start? Is that now or when I discovered it?

3. Given I think there is a likelihood of the affair still going on, how would you approach this? Should I ask her outright as part of a discussion on honesty etc. or keep snooping to discover it?

4. More generally, during Plan A should we have conversations about it and how we are feeling/think we are getting on? Part of me thinks this is a good idea, but the other thinks it just reminds her of everything and that it would be better to focus on us and the future.

5. I am torn between asking for her passcode to her work phone and trying to find it out by snooping. Obviously if she gives me the code she would be more careful, but it may take time to discover the password. What would you do?

Thanks

James

Hi James, welcome to Marriage Builders. Sorry for the reasons that bring you here. The first sentence explains why you are not progressing. As long as they work together, this is hopeless.

I would therefore, start by stepping up your exposures. Expose to the workplace, the OM's family and friends and anyone else who can have an influence on the affair. Is the OM married? Have you confronted him?

Plan A starts when you start Plan A. Plan A means exposure and offering to meet her needs if she will end her affair.


It would be better to focus on busting up the affair while being as pleasant as possible. I get the feeling that you are going along with her affair which is a bad idea. You should be telling her how devastated you are by her affair. IT is the most painful thing you have ever endured.


You should not ask her for the passcode because that would defeat the whole purpose of snoopong.

Do you have children? How long married?

Thanks Melody

We have been together for 12 years, married for 6 years and have 2 daughters 5 and 7.

I am aware that the work is the issue. As I say I only found this site recently and have told her she needs to leave. The "good" thing is that her company has launched a redundancy programme and they will name those at risk on 1 November. I am therefore prepared to let her continue until then.

Her immediate managers at work know about it as she burst into tears one day.

The OM is married, although his wife became aware too and contacted me. I told her as much as I knew. I understand from her that she has filed for divorce. I have therefore not disclosed any further to his side.

I will expose to more of her friends.

I am not going along with her affair and we have had numerous conversations about the pain. She is well aware of this. There is a TV programme in the UK at the moment about an affair which she watched and she told me of her own volition that she cried at the part where the BS said she could live with the knowledge of the affair but not the lying, as she knows that is what hurts me so much.

Two questions on your response:

1. You said: "It would be better to focus on busting up the affair while being as pleasant as possible." Do you mean taking the actions to expose further and meeting her needs, or also by discussing the busting it up?

2. On the snooping, how does this fit with trying to get her to be honest? I was thinking that by asking her, if she tells me then that is a good start. Obviously if she denies access, then I would need to snoop anyway. But she is not stupid. She knows that the only thing I do not have access to is that phone and she will have guessed that I have tried to get into it already.

James

Next time you have access to your WW's iPhone, do this:

Go to Settings:Privacy:Location Services:System Services:Frequent Locations

If she and the OM are regularly running off to the same rendezvous, you will see it here, along with dates and times.

why don't you try putting a voice activated recorder in her car or where she takes calls on that work phone.....don't tell her, just see what the real truth is and what you are really dealing with, tell as many people as you can......this will shine a bright light on the affair.
stop discussing anything about what you are doing.....you are helping her hide things but letting her know what you are doing in the snooping department the longer you let this go on, the more in love with him she will be and the more your marriage and family is in jeopardy.......
Stay clam, meet her needs.....come back when you get the information you need and the vets here can walk you through all the steps to save your marriage..
Right now there is no point talking to her, wayward will say anything and everything to protect the affair, you cannot trust her this is not your wife right now but someone with an addiction to someone else........
don't help her or accept her affair, you cannot talk her out of it......

OK thanks.

I am a bit confused now. I thought the advice was to make it clear to her that I want to work this through and make it work (which I have). I realise that if the affair is going on that I need to bust it, but is that done solely by exposure and me meeting her needs or do I also try to get her to join in this? I suppose my question is, is this the time to bring out the emotional needs questionnaire etc. and try to get her to focus on that, or is it too early for that?

Joe a big thing that I am seeing is that you are trying to make Plan A a joint effort between you and your wife. Plan A is a plan that you work alone to try to bring your wife back to the marriage.

Your wife is making statements like "we are not progressing." The truth is SHE is not progressing - she is still in contact, so she is still having her affair! She is like a falling down drunk and you can't work with her or plan with her.

The big, big, BIG thing for you to do is to expose this affair far and wide. Work through the exposure 101 thread and make sure you have done everything there. Then focus on being pleasant and cheerful with your wife and try to get her to spend enjoyable time alone with you in conversation, i.e., on a date.

That's it; it's that simple. Don't make it more complicated than it needs to be.

Agree x 100.

Stop trying to reason with or talk your WW out of the affair.
Do NOT send her here or discuss MB with her while she is still at the workplace with OM.

This is NOT workplace exposure.

Besides, I would assume everything she tells you regarding her affair or OM or the workplace as a LIE unless you can verify it 100% yourself.

Trickle exposure (which is what you are doing) is not effective. It puts you at a HUGE disadvantage because the affairees will try to get to folks before you do and tell them that you are "crazy" "jealous" and anything else to discredit you before you can get to them.

It should be done all at once.

You really need to take this step of the program more seriously. Your WW has been enabled for months and months, while the affair has become more entrenched, add in the fact that the OM's BW told you they are getting a D and this situation becomes more scary. I would read and RE-read the exposure step and strive to follow it 100%. Workplace, ALL family and friends that could have an influence on your WW and the OM's side. All at once.

Time to stop enabling and appeasing your WW. As you can see, that does NOT work.

And your children need to be exposed to also.

It is great the you have found this site, Dr Harley's plan for fighting adultery is the best plan there is. But you have to follow it to the letter, especially in your situation because this A is very entrenched and is heading down the path of ending your marriage. Exposure is the single greatest weapon you have against that. But after months of enabling and a trickle exposure, you really only have one shot left to do this right and do a widespread exposure that will hopefully put some pressure on this affair.

Have you read the Exposure 101 thread? Pay specific attention to the workplace exposure, this is a key exposure target for you because of this being a workplace affair. Letting the rumor mill circle because she was crying at work, does NOT equal a proper workplace exposure and will not be at all effective.

The other problem I see here is that you are trying to partner with your wife on this. RECOVERY is a partnership. But you are not in a recovery stage, because your wife is still in an affair. Until she is out of the affair for good, has gone absolutely no contact with her OM (and this cannot happen until she leaves her job), you are routinely verifying this fact, and she has committed to a plan of recovery, until then you alone are fighting this affair and your fogged out wayward wife cannot be trusted and is no partner to you.

Please don't underestimate the addictive power of the affair, and the means your wife would go to in order to protect it. She is not going to be truthful to you, which is why you need to stop asking her if she has contact and snoop without her knowledge. She is not going to expose this properly to people, which is why you expose all at once without informing or discussing it with her. She is not at all trustworthy right now. You are fighting FOR her and not with her.

Your WW will NOT be honest with you. She is in the fog of an affair, it is the epitome of dishonesty. If you let her know you are snooping on her, this just gives her and her OM the opportunity to circumvent your snooping methods. If she knows you are monitoring her phone, she can buy an affair phone to use that you don't know about. If she knows you have access to her email, she can set up a secondary email address that you don't know about. You would simply be driving this very entrenched affair further underground.

Have you put key loggers on her devices yet? That is a more thorough way to monitor than just checking when things could have been deleted. Also, I would also place a VAR in her car.

Thanks all. Yes I was conflating the Plan A and recovery elements as I thought they were the same thing or at least done at the same time. OK so I think that is now clear.

So, in simple terms, the process I should be doing now is:

1 - demand she leave her job
2 - tell her that we have no future unless she does
3 - expose it to as many people as I can
4 - try to be nice and meet her needs BUT I do this without letting on I am doing this or involving her in the process
5 - only when I am sure that she has stopped do we move to recovery phase

Is that right? And 1-4, I keep going for 6 months?

On workplace exposure, I do know that her managers know because her senior manager sent her a relationship counsellor's details and she forwarded those details to me.

Other than the workplace, it hasn't really been a trickle exposure as I first told people yesterday and I have already told more today.

Anything else?

Who exactly are you going to expose it to? Please list it out. I am concerned because we see a pattern of enabling BS's who like to cut corners here. By listing it out, we can ensure this doesn't happen and help to make sure you do an exposure that is as effective as possible.


Again, this is not workplace exposure in accordance with the Exposure 101 thread. It is laid out the way it is there for specific reasons, eg, it holds the workplace chain of command accountable to exposing it to several levels, and it is an official notification, etc.

I am still concerned that this is trickling out, James. In addition to the workplace exposure that you think has happened (which it hasn't) I am not seeing responses to some of the exposure targets that were pointed out to you.

You have indicated that you haven't exposed to the OM's side - are you saying this has been done?

You were told the children need to be exposed to and I don't see a response. When will this be done?

Don't see an answer to the part that is in bold.

"On workplace exposure, I do know that her managers know because her senior manager sent her a relationship counsellor's details and she forwarded those details to me."

Her senior managers only know the lies told to them by the cheaters. You need to contact them immediately and ask them to take steps against the affair, giving them all the TRUE FACTS about the affair. Please read my exposure thread for talking points.

I would also expose to the OMs friends and family on Facebook. Raise holy hell on the OM until you run him off.

Radical honesty does not apply when there is abuse or an affair. You need to snoop like bloodhound.