I got a nice holiday treat when I found a charge for two Victoria's Secret gift certificates, one of which I didn't get. I asked him who it was for and he made up some story about how they must have charged him twice by accident. But after some more investigation (sneaky, I am) I discovered this was a lie. I even, through a friend, was able to find out what was purchased with the certificate and bought myself the same outfit. (a size smaller). You should have seen my husband's face when I wore it! He still won't admit to having an affair, but I know he's lying. Anyway, that's my story, and when I'm not heartbroken, it seems kinda funny/sad to me. I was wondering if some other people could share how they found out?

I found out because my H didn't erase history on the computer and I found a hotmail account that I didn't know about. I tried to open it up for 2 weeks while he was out of town-and was unsuccessful. I picked him up from the airport and confronted him. Asked him why he had this secret email - he gave me all kinds of excuses, but then when I demand that he open it in front of me when we got home, he got silent. I demanded who the woman was (just guessing - not for sure), and he would not answer. I KNEW at that point!!! It was the longest ride home (1 hr). I hated him! I screamed, threatend lawyers, kicked him out of the house, called his parents and told them that their loser son had an A on me. I spent 2 weeks in hell! Couldn't sleep, had anxiety attacks. I went to MC and read His Needs/Her Needs, and SAA (highly recommented). He broke it off with OW (who he met out of town and started A 3 days before I flew down to celebrate our 15th anniversary with him last summer)

We have since been in recovery, He is so pro fixing our marriage. He even asked me to renew our vows which we are doing on Valentines. I made him write a letter to this girl to say that he couldn't see her anymore because he was married and had 3 kids (he already broke it off her, but he wasn't being "MAN" enough to tell her the truth. She thought he was a single guy). I read it and watched him hit the send button on the computer.

I do have to say that I am still very hurt, and this isn't easy for me, but I am trying, and I love him (although, he made bad choices). I will give him this 1 chance.

hey jiltedjulie - I know how you feel about your husband denying it. I can tell you that I wish I read Surviving an Affair before I found out. There is a section in the book that talks about the signs of a WS, and everything that they mentioned, my husband did (I kept saying to myself, "if only I knew during the time..." He was being distant, he changed his cell phone access number...I mentioned it to him in July, and he got so defensive, and after 2 days finally gave it to me (making me feel so guilty). But, then after a week, he changed it again. He became distant, he was so mean to me, he treated me like scum, and he quit telling me he loved me. His last trip (while I was suspecting), he told me he loved me 2 times (out of over 10 calls). He never gave me his # where he was staying (I just had his cell #), he gave me zilch for affection and conversation. Hope this helps!

Julie: There is a fair amount of information abotu snooping on this and the General Questions II forum. Search for "snoop". It takes a while, but you should get good info. But, really, you alreay know, so the more important question may be "What do I do now?". If you need to snoop to get proof, fine, but beyond that: </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> You can recover. Many people have. It isn't easy, and not everyone succeeds, but as long as you are both working on it, your chances are close to 100%. If your spouse is NOT willing to work on your marriage, is denying involvement in an affair despite the evidence, and/or is continuing an affair, read What Are Plan A and Plan B? after reading the "Basic Concepts" links below. In that case, you need to start Plan A with the help of a marriage counselor (see item #2, below). There are a couple terrific posts about Plan A that are worth reading at: Plan A, Doormats and Love Busters by Zorweb and Cerri on Plan A, which will help you avoid some of the common pitfalls. Your situation is harder, but your chances of saving your marriage and actually making it better than before are still good. But, whether your spouse is "on board" or not, you should do three things:

1.) Learn. The most important and helpful single source of information for my wife and I was “Surviving an Affair” by Willard Harley (hereinafter referred to as “SAA”) available at the Bookstore, Amazon.com, and bookstores all over. SAA is THE best book on the market for helping one get to the root of “the message of the affair” (BUT YOU HAVE TO DO THE QUESTIONAIRES!). It (along with the Basic Concepts section of this site) is also helpful for giving you a vision of what a great marriage should look like. The approach of SAA to this problem is that the best defense against affairs is to have a great marriage. My wife said we had a good marriage, but she still had an affair. She was kidding herself, but it was not until we read SAA and saw what a great marriage should look like that we could clearly identify the problem areas and had the tools necessary to fix them. So that you can get started right away, while waiting for SAA to arrive in the mail, read everything in the Basic Concepts section of this site. Next, read all the Q&A's on infidelity on this site. They are found at How to Survive Infidelity

The phrase “the message of the affair” is from the book “Torn Asunder”, by Carder (hereinafter referred to as “TA”). I personally think this is the best book on affair recovery we have read. In particular it deals with the two different paths the recovery of the betrayed spouse (BS) and the wayward spouse (WS) need to take, and deals w/ remorse in a way that I prefer to SAA. Read it together, if your spouse is willing. If not, go through it yourself. If you or your spouse has issues with control, you might also want to read “The State of Affairs”, (SOA) by Todd Mulliken, which also treats the remorse issue similarly to TA. SOA also deals with "the vision thing" for marriage, which is neglected in SAA.

2.) See a marriage counselor. This is hard. You need help. These boards are populated by amateurs. MC’s are professionals. There is a difference. They can help deal with issues the books don’t cover, and customize things to your individual situation. That said, there are lots of bad MC’s in the world. Read, and take to heart, How To Find A Good Marriage Counselor. You do not want an MC that is going to teach you how to live with an awful spouse, or how to adjust to divorce. Too many of them do, as is documented here: Hazardous Counseling. Reading that link may scare you off counseling, but it should give you some good ideas to ask a potential MC before you start w/ them, so you can avoid those that give you the wrong answers. You need one that is committed to helping couples have great marriages, and knows how to do that.

You are on an emotional rollercoaster right now, and there will be times that you will think it would be best to just divorce your spouse and go on with your life. Though there are no guarantees, recovery IS possible, but it takes time and effort. You will hate yourself if you don't do everything you can to make that happen. Give yourself the time you need.

3.) I understand that you may not be a person of faith, but for me, getting my spiritual life in order was crucial. As I said, this is hard. I knew I would need all the help I could get. Repenting of the habitual sins in my life let me stop pushing God away so I could hold on for dear life. I had to humble myself and ask Him what I had done wrong, and what I could do to be the husband He wanted me to be for his child, my wife. This was not about blaming myself. It was about doing what I could to do my part in having a great marriage. My wife could participate or not, but I had to know I had done everything I could do. It also helped me to let go of thinking about what SHE needed to do, since I couldn't control her, anyway.

You might also want to read through: WAT's Quick Start Guidelines for Betrayed Spouses, but keep in mind that these are the writings of amateurs. Get the books, read the articles, and see a GOOD counselor - you need the best help you can get.

Of course, that is just my opinions and what worked for me, who experienced it once, first hand. Harley, who has helped HUNDREDS of couples through this process, lays out his program in the following link: How to Survive Infidelity You will find that I mostly followed his plan. It works. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">

He had charged lunch a couple of times. First of all, he doesn't usually stop for lunch and secondly, he didn't mention who he had lunch with. When it happened again the following week, I confronted him. He said, "You don't want to open that can of worms." <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" /> Although, he didn't admit anything, at least he didn't deny it. Unfortunately the following week, it turned into a PA. I went through hell for 4 1/2 months until he ended the A and now we're on the road to recovery.

My DH got "caught" through his cell phone bill. I take care of the bills so how he thought he'd get away with it, I don't know. When I saw the same phone# on his bill (mostly as text messages)for two months running (weird, but the first month of the A, I didn't look over his bill, just paid it - not enough time in the day I guess) I knew it. It blindsided me like you couldn't believe. This was something I NEVER thought he'd do.
We are in recovery now...taking it day by day (in fact, he is right this moment taking the EN & LB Questionnare so we can go over each other's later).
I have my bad days when EVERYTHING is a trigger, but right now there are more good then bad.