Hello,
I am brand new here and after reading a few of the posts, I see that i am certainly not alone.

About 2-3 months ago , my wife began spending more time on-line. We have a group of friends on-line(and in person) who all talk regularly and get together for travel and other activities.

I noticed a change in her but couldn't quite put my finger on it.
We have been married almost 18 years, most of them very happy. Sex life has always been good, but less frequent in recent years (1-2 times/week)

Anyway... I discover she had been visiting chat sites, one in particular called "Married but Tempted" I noticed she had an additional e:mail ady in her WebTv and when I initially inquired about it, she said it was set up for a discussion group for Weight Watchers, which she has/had been attending.

Turns out she had been spending LOTS of time on this chat board, had evolved into cyver-sex, and began having phone conversations/phone sex with several of the people from the chat room. I asked her for our cell phone bill last month, and she got all strange, that is when I was sure there were things going on.

After reviewing the bill, I found countless calls to men all over the country, one 800 number turned out to be a calling card which she purchased to make many of these calls on cell and at home.

I confronted her, and she came clean with what had been going on, to a point.
She was very upset, said she had just been having these feeling she had never had before, was excited by the thrill/anonymity etc. I was not happy about all of this, but having seen other go down the path of various internet addictions, I wasn't completely devistated.

But, the more I looked into things I was finding more out, and started noticeing more
local numbers. I confronted her asking if she had gone and met any of these men. She did confess to having met a man for lunch, but that nothing happened. She said she was scared, ashamed and frieghtened of destroying our marriage.

We went and got her alternate e:mail deleted, and she swore she was done with this cyber-mess. I felt as if all had not come out , and I decided to put a phone recording device on our home line while I was away this past weekend camping with my brothers. I had actually come home friday evening to see our daughter off to the her prom, and had a great intimate session before I left to go back to the woods.

When I got home on monday and listened to the phone recordings, I was blown away.
Not an hour after I had left the house, she was on the phone with one of her cyber-men. After swearing that this was all just fantasy, and a 'wrong turn' she took, she was continuing to have these phone liaasons. I started doing a lot of reading about cyber-affairs, and kept reading the stories of how often they evolve into real-time relationships.

Yesterday, the next months cell bill arrives. I had confronted her in about the middle of the billing cycle, so there were numerous calls prior to that date. One string of calls was from a night she was out for her sisters bachelorette party, all to this same number. Starting at 10pm the calls begin, and then a series of calls following the end of the party - each one traveling west from our home, and ending at 3am. She didn't arrive home until 6am that morning.

Well this sent me over the edge. Subsequent calls from/to this number were only a few afterwards. At first she said didn't meet him , she chickened out. After pressing her she claims she did meet him, they kissed and had heavy petting in the car, and that she was not at all turned on by him and that she left. She said she was so scared and worried, tired and crying and barely able to drive, and she pulled over and tried to sleep for a while.

I can't decide to believe her or not. She claims she wants to do anything and everthing to save our marriage. I get the sense she is truly sorry and devastated by this path she went down. All the e:mail and other things I found don't indicate that any of these liaasons went beyond these short-lived contacts - and nothing I've found indicates she had any degree of love or affection for any man in particular.

I am very hurt. There are people who say cyber-sex is or s not cheating. Certainly phone sex crosses that line, and most definitely going to meet someone does.

It keeps eating away at me that she is affraid to come completely clean with what happened in this while scenario. I want to believe, but too many lies have been spoken up to this point.

I do love her, and want to work things out - but the 'not knowing' if she has come clean with everything is causing the most pain. I have not been 100% perfect in all these years, but have never had any type of affair.

Help - I'm frazzled. I'm just in this empty sort of limbo state.
I just turned 40, she is 39.
Is this just midlife crisis kind of **** ?
Is this a bump in the road ?
Can we get past this ?

Yes, cyber-sex is cheating. Duh! The only people who say it's not are those who want to avoid feeling guilty about what they have done, are doing, and/or want to continue doing.

Click on the link in my signature line for infrmation on how to recover from this so it won't happen again.

UPDATE....
Well, the truth comes out.
After some detective work, I called they guy and posed as a doctor from a health clinic. I told him his name was brought up by (insert wife's name) as a person she had had sexual contact with, and she had tested positive for an STD.

I asked him is he had sexual intercourse with 'the woman'
He said "yes"
I then asked him if was protected or unprotectd
and he said "unprotected"

I confronted the wife, and she is now willing to admit.
I told her we must go get checked for STDs
Great !!

What has started out as cyber-sex, developed into the real thing, and unprotected none the less.

I'm completely at a loss for words, emotions, and feelings right now.
I can't believe this woman I've known for 18 years would be THAT careless about not only her health, but mine as well !

I am so sorry for your pain. How awful that your wife continued to lie to your face about all of this and ended up having unprotected sex putting her and you at great risk. Of course I would suggest counseling and continue to monitor her.
It sounds like this is an addiction and that she is willing to throw away her marriage on this. I am afraid this will be a long hard road for the both of you. I also believe you should make it clear that there are consequences to her lying and betrayal. The old saying "no consequences to her actions equals no motivation to change" applies here. The fact that she found it so easy to continuously lie to you after you continued to catch her in lies is very negative. Do you get an answer as to why she would have sex with a stranger and possibly destroy your marriage?
Do you ask her how she would be feeling if the roles has been reversed? Why would she feel it was right to disrespect and humiliate you this way? I cannot imagine her answers. I wish you luck.

Frazzled1: You're in for a very rough time, but don't give up. Start reading and keep reading. Get Surviving an Affair, read everything on this site (not the forums, the concepts).

Find a -good- counselor. And yes, keep watching your wife's behaviour, and keep confronting her. Not angrily. But let her know that all this bothers you a lot, and ask her to stop.

Well,
Things have really come around the past few days. She realized/admitted that she felt she had an addicition to the whole 'net' thing. Up until several weeks ago it was just the net/phone thing - but the one night she stepped over the edge, and fell in to the abyis.

The other night she cried for hours about how she didn't know how out of control this had all gotten, how she could have been so deceptive, so misleading, and so dishonest about her activities.

She begged and begged me not to throw her out, or to leave and that our marriage/family did mean more to her than anything in life.
I guess I'm fortunate to have caught all this early on, before this went much deeper, or before she fell hard for one of these cyber men.

We have deleted her "alias" e:mail accounts, and she sat with me and sent a e:mail out to all the people she had been in contact with in these past few months. She has given me all her passwords to e:mail, voice mail, etc accounts, and a phone card which one of the men sent her was shredded.

We both went to be tested for STDs the other day, and all the test have come back negative so far.

This tuesday we are seeing a MC locally for the first time.

I have great hope for us.
Having read much on internet addiction/cyber affairs the past few weeks, I can see how people jump in so easliy. There is a certain rush about the annonymity
of at all at first, but it seems to quickly progress to much more than that.

I will stop back in, and let you know how things progress.
I thank you all for this site, and for your sharing your stories, advice, and support.

My wife knows that she came very close to throwing her entire life away, and seems truly contrite, and ready to reconcile her wrongs, and to find what made her take these incredibly dangerous risks with her life.

Having gone through drug addiction many years ago, I know a lot of what she has gone through, and is still going through. Hopefully that experience will assist me in helping her/us to get through all of this and move on.

It might be a good idea to get rid of the webtv and/or computer in your home to remove the temptation of her logging in while you are not home. This would be like removing all bottles of liquor from the house to remove the temptation to drink while you are away and she is alone in the house.

actually, i'm already on this one

the keyboard is wireless, and leaves the house with me <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Frazzled1:
<strong>actually, i'm already on this one

the keyboard is wireless, and leaves the house with me <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">If you are referring to the webtv (I had one, and I loved it), she can always buy another wireless keyboard behind your back. You are better off taking the webtv box instead.

<small>[ May 23, 2003, 03:21 PM: Message edited by: T00MuchCoffeeMan ]</small>