Thanks Prisca and Ever2late. I did write Dr. and Mrs. Harley a week or two ago and they answered my email on the radio show. I don't remember my exact question right now, but Dr. Harley did say something to the effect of it being a good idea to take a break from mentioning No Contact at that particular time. Since she finally agreed to NC (at least claims to be), I switched to mentioning transparency now. So it seems logical that taking a break from mentioning it would still be a good idea.

Bob, there's a fine distinction between two different scenarios:
1. An active affair situation, where you are trying to convince the wayward spouse to end the affair

and

2. a "No Contact has been established, and I need to Plan A her for awhile to try to convince her to recover with me, BUT the affair is in the PAST" situation.

In #1, you need to bring up the affair every day. It is the number 1 problem in your marriage, and you must not avoid talking about it. This is a big part of Plan A.

In #2, the affair is a thing of the past. This is when the principle of never bringing up mistakes of the past comes in to play. It is here when you must focus on recovery and the problems of the present, and never refer to the affair. You may also "Plan A" during this time, or sometimes it is referred to as "priming the pump." But the affair is no longer the problem in your marriage. You are in "Recovery."

Sometimes posters have trouble seeing the fine distinction here, but it is here.

Has she agreed to transparency?

Just passing through to say, Great post, Prisca. Well put.

I think I understand the distinctiin, but I am a little confused by one thing. Previously I was telling her to stop the affair everyday and she woukd say "no I don't want to" or "we are just friends now". Then she agreed to NC but I caught her a couple times and she started over. Now I haven't caught her in a while and she says she isn't talking to him, so I no longer mention ending the affair. Now all I mention is transparency and the rest of the checklist. But I assume they have some way of communicating while at work.

The last conversation I recorded, it was clear she did cut contact with him and stick with it for the 4 previous days. Those 4 days I assumed she was really in contact because she was not in withdrawal. But it turned out she was telling the truth that time. They had been off and on for several weeks.
I don't understand why she wasn't in withdrawal for those 4 days though. Could it be a delay and withdrawal won't really hit her until the NC sinks in for a few days? Or sometjing else? I'm wondering because everytime she agrees to NC, I keep waiting for the withdrawal so I will know it's for real, but it never comes.
Or does the withdrawal come after transparency when she knows it's done for good?

Yes. Right now, contact is still an option. She gets a high whenever she talks to him, and she can go a few days on that. Then, before withdrawal sets in, she contacts him to get another high.

It's like being a druggie.

DollarBob, please listen to today's marriage builders show. It will play all weekend. I would encourage you to listen daily

I usually listen everyday but didn't today. I will check it out.

It seems like I may be getting a little closer to transparency. I figured out her Facebook password yesterday and it sent her a text alert and locked her account so she had to change the password to log back in. Since she unlocked her phone i was able to sneak and see her note with saved passwords. I managed to find the instagram password and snapchat again.
She still won't agree to transparency, but she doesn't get so angry when she catches me snooping. Of course this could be due to her having a burner phone at work. Even if I do get full transparency, I don't know what to do about that possibility. The only thing I can imagine is to get her to recover and show me his last deleted messages to see if it mentions a burner. Of course they could have talked about it on her work phone.
I wrote her a nice long note yesterday that seemed to draw her closer to me. But she coukd have also been in a good mood from talking to OM after our weekend trip to the beach.

Bob,

I don't see this as being closer to transparency. She isn't volunteering anything. You are having to dig to find it.

Who knows why she isn't getting as angry as before. It's all speculation right now.

Any chance you could step up your snooping game plan? Many people hire PIs to find out what's going on.

I thought about hiring a P.I. but I doubt I can afford it. I have enough snooping in place to know exactly what she is doing at all times except for when she is at work. I expect she either has a burner phone at work or is using a seperate account on her work computer to text.
I need to find a way to get some kind of spyware on her work computer.
She thinks I have something on her cellphone to see everything she does. I heard her tell this to her friend on the voice recorder.

Is it too late to continue exposure at this point? It's been over a month since the exposure, and I just found there is a group of the family that still isn't aware. Will it do any good or possibly cause irreparable damage?
Also, she has a new group of girl friends she has started hanging out with. Do I expose to them too?

I sent her another message about transparency earlier. She called and was complaining and saying she is doing nothing wrong and all that. This time though she was crying and sounded stressed out instead of angry. She said she is done and doesn't love me and can't make herself love me. I kept on with the usual message and repeated that I love her and want to make the marriage great and all that stuff. She hung up on me. We texted once or twice and finally she said "fine" and texted me the passwords. She said "now you can look at whatever you want to. I am done".

Guess I will keep plan A going and see what this leads to next.

Great idea!! Good job.

Bring up the next item on the checklist.

She still has a seperate bank account she started about 3 weeks after D-day that her pay check goes into. I need to get her to close that. She also has 2 credit cards I need to be able to see.

How does this usually work? When a typical WW agrees to transparency, is it angrily and reluctantly like my wife seems to be doing? Or do they usually have sort of an epiphany and agree to full transparency all at once?

I believe that since she gave me the passwords, when I ask her to close the seperate bank account and let me have access to the credit card statements (unless they use the same password and everything else), she is going to say, "it's never going to end with you. I gave you my social media passwords and you keep wanting more. You will never trust me." I would be willing to bet my next 3 paychecks she is going to say something to that effect.

By the way, after she gave me the passwords and said she is done (trying to save the marriage), she eventually calmed down over the next hour and we calmly discussed or plan for the evening chores. She is still acting quiet and upset. It almost seems like withdrawal a little bit. But she definitely doesn't appear to be "done". I think with a few nice comments and some good plan A for the next day or maybe two, she will be back to a good mood.

I was just reading over the checklist. It looks like all we have left to do is account for money and change email addresses and phone numbers and close social media. We already have been spending all leisure time together and avoiding overnight seperation. As far as the 24 hour schedule, we spend all time together except when she is at work. Usually we talk at lunch time and I find out where she is going and with whom. Everything has been verified with the GPS and voice recorder thus far.

I think that will help me when I start asking for her to close social media and account for money. I can remind her that those are the last items on the checklist. Everything else is being followed wether intentionally or not. If she tries to stay somewhere overnight or go do something alone, I can remind her of the checklist and let her know we have done most of it without trying intentionally.

And relocating, I still need her to follow me when I move.

It's interesting that a month or two ago, whenever she would get angry she would say she is getting a divorce. Recently when she gets mad, instead of threatening divorce, she says she wishes I would just let her go. Like I am somehow forcing her to stay with me. She makes the same amount of money as me and has her mom willing to move in and take my place with the bills and chores, so there is nothing holding her back but herself.

Ok, the missing part of the checklist is that she has not ended her affair.

They have to be communicating at work somehow. When I get home today I'm going to try the passwords out that she gave me and see if I can access icloud on her apple desktop and see the last messages he sent.
She told me he sent her a message on Monday, 9 days ago and she said she didn't respond and that was supposedly their last communication. I wanna see what that says and if there are any other messages mentioning a burner phone or anything.

She got mad on that Monday because she told me she got weak and downloaded the app to see if he had messaged her, but she was proud that she told me about it and didn't respond. I told her thanks, but I also said that still counts as communication since she purposefully looked and read his message. I reiterated that we needed zero contact for life. She got mad and barely talked to me for a day after that.

Should I keep pressing for the remainder of the transparency today? She is still upset from giving me the passwords yesterday and probably thinking a relationship with me doesn't seem that attractive. I was going to wait a day or two for us to get back on friendly terms, but maybe I should keep pressing for changing her phone number and email and all that.