Four weeks ago, I discovered my wife's affair with one of her co-workers. I became suspicious and taped our phone (I know it's illegal). It took me a week to believe what was going on. We had drifted in the last few years, and after reading this site, I see that I share some of the blame for allowing her to fall into this, but that is another story!
Anyway, I needed a week to decide what to do and to work through my feelings of abandonment, and another week to work up the courage to confront her. When I confronted her, she demanded to know what my evidence was and I admitted to the taping. She shot back that it was all staged with the co-worker/friend to hurt me as *she* suspected me of an affair (I have never had, or considered one).
Here is where I was weak. I wanted to have her back, and so I accpeted her far fetched explanation, hoping that she would clean up her mess and we could go on.
Well it's a week later and although she is peaches and cream to me, she is worried about the co-worker. She talks about him and *his* marrital problems all the time. She still is quite close to him.
I was a fool to have allowed myself to get pulled into this face-saving lie of hers.
If I tell her that I think she is lying, I don't think we will be able to save anything, if I keep quiet, it's like I'm consenting to more affair! What should I do?

alex -

Welcome to marriagebuilders. I am so glad you found us in time. You have lots of work to do. First read up on the program - go to the home page and check out "quick clicks". They give the whole program.

Start in Plan A. In this plan, you are calm and respectful to your wife. You show her what a good husband you can be. Next you shed a little light on the affair by telling OM's wife. Your wife will be furious, they all are. But it is necessary to end the affair.

Keep posting and reading here and we will help you through this.

alex,
Welcome. You have found a great place to come for advice and guidance. There are many folks here that really know what they're talking about.

Just remember, you're still pretty early in the game. Your wife is in the FOG. She is irrational, will not accept responsibility for any of her actions, and will possibly try to make you feel as though it's your fault. All WS go thru the same motions, speak the same language. She will probably say things that will hurt you, possibly saying she doesn't love you, blah, blah, blah. You can pretty much disregard most of what she tells you. Do not take things personally, WSs are quick to point the finger.

Like Believer said. Read up on this site, and start Plan A. Just know that this rollercoaster is a long ride. But MB is here for you.

Also, just so you know. You will be encouraged to do things, and act in ways that will probably feel wrong to you right now. (yes, sometimes you may feel like a doormat). You will want to follow your instinct many times and LB (lovebust) or throw in the towel. Please, follow a good Plan A, show your WW the husband you CAN be, show her the way home. You want to be the more attractive one, here, not the OM.

You are not week, alex. Unfortunately, the BS has to be the strong one...

Hang in there, and keep posting.
MOP

Thanks for the welcoming, kind words. I have two problems here.
First, my wife has not "owned" (or even admitted to) what she did. While I was confronting her, she shot back that she knew that I was listening in on her phone calls, and staged the whole thing to get even with me because she thought that I was having an affair! I have never, nor would ever break any of our marriage vows, and told her so. She appologized for letting her imagination run away with her and for staging this fake affair. Anyone over the age of 8 1/2 knows that this is total BS, but like a drowning man tossed a life preserver, I accepted it. Now we are living a total lie. I'm the bad guy for having taped her calls, and she is having a hard time trusting me again!!! I thought that accepting her lie would allow her to do the right thing while sparing her emabarassment, etc. I see that this is not only wrong, but is now a hugh stumbling block to any hope of recovery. The OM is still very close to her at work, and the only real change is that they don't use the phone anymore. BTW, I promised her that I would never listen in again, and I keep my promises.

I will continue this in another post...

Continuing from the previous message...

I know that if I now state that I don't believe her staged affair story, what fragile threads we have built will be blown away. I can't continue with any of the advice given here until she owns up to what she has done.

My other problem is that it seems that all the healing that I have read about here has to come from me. I realize that I must have stopped providing her some emotional support that drove her to the affair, and she didn't even have the decency to talk to me about the void, she just thumbed her nose at me and filled it on her own. It seems to me that what she did to me was far worse than what I did (or didn't do) to her. Why should I have to get on my knees and beg her?!?!? I have to make all the effort to win her back. Where's the justice? I went through total hell over this. I've lost weight, can't eat or sleep, pop 2 or 3 Pepcid Completes every day, and am on my second bottle of Tums EX. All she is doing is thanking her lucky stars that I'm so gullable.

Help me out with my feelings!!! Please!!!

All the BS's here are in the same boat. It is the nature of WS's not to admit affair, not to feel sorry about it, or even apologize. They are like addicts, self-centered and entitled.

It is extremely annoying, and not fair. But if you want to save your marriage, stick with the plan.

alex,
you want to be helped but you don't want to confront your problem. you're afraid that she will leave you...but technically, she's already gone.

you made a promise not to snoop anymore but are willing to let your W continue to behave dishonorably. where is the sense in that? aren't you worth more then that?

you want heal, to feel better but in truth, you aren't willing to pay the emotional price that the ticket to your promised land costs. you need to fight for yourself, your marriage and your wife. making believe will not solve any of your problems.

if it were me i would spy, spy, spy! at this point you owe yourself more then you owe to your W; and keeping your promis to her is nothing short of foolish. i would get proof and then confronthe with it. if the OM is married I would go to his W with the whole sordid mess as well.

before you can hope to begin healing this relationship you have to break up the affair and that means learning how. read all you can here especially about plan A & B. or take some other course of action if you feel that would be better but do something.

coach

Your emotions are very natural. Please come here to vent. Try not to vent at her, as it is an LB, and will not further your objective. Read up on the plans A and B. Yes, you are the one who has to educate yourself, calm yourself, and do the work right now. If you want to save your marriage.

She is not capable of that right now. It is not fair or right, but that is how it is. Get some of the books recommended here - a lot of them will give you insight into her side of the A, how she is feeling. They help explain why you are feeling some of the extreme emotions you are feeling, as well.

Time will make it better. Listen to the old-timers here - they are wise in these matters. You are at the right place.

Keep posting, vent, complain, even whine if you have to. We all have. We will support you through this. You can do it!

Amy

IMO you should hire a P.I. to do the snooping for you. The chances are that she will not expect you to do this and will continue her relationship with the OM.

I have thought about hiring a PI, but when the phone thing ($20) paid off, I thought I was done. I couldn't believe that she could deny what she had done. What would I be getting into with a PI? All I know about them is from TV. What kind of ballpark cost? What could I expect to see in the way of evidence? Most of the intimate parts of their affair was conducted on the phone. I believe that they were alone together only a few times and based on conversations, were sexual only twice. I would really need cut and dried evidence to effectively confront her again. I have to get her to admit to the affair before anything constructive can happen.

Thanks for the help so far, I only wish I had discovered this community a couple of weeks ago!

Your w is not your W right now, she is a pod person that has been replaced...your real W is enjoying herself in a fantasy called Affairland, where H's beleive everything you tell them, where lies come from nowhere, and if everyone would just leave her and OM alone, they would be happy.

I'm sorry to be so flip, it just irks me to read the gall some WS have. Don't they know we're smarter than this?

OK, she's afraid you're going to snoop on her again...she wouldn't be afraid if she wasn't still up to something. Check her car for a cell phone or bills. Check her receipts. Dr. Harley says that you should never trust your S 100% (that goes both ways). You should always have the right to check up on each other. Would you be offended if she checked up on you?

You can try other things too check, try a keylogger for the computer, *69 whenever you get home, check caller ID?, give her a cell phone but have the bills come to your office.

I would call the OMW. She deserves to know.

I know you're afraid to confront her about her lies, but recovery doesn't start until N/C begins...and it sounds like she is still continuing with the OM because she wasn't caught...

The thin threads you are holding onto are just that. She's not on the other end...what do you have to lose? And what do you have to gain?

Confront her without LB's. Begin with an apology for your part in making the M unbearable that she felt she had to get your attention with an A. Be as specific as possible. Don't expect an apology back. Ask for MC. Schedule MC with the Harley's? If she doesn't agree...then you know you have a longer row to hoe. Begin counseling for yourself and expose the A to family, friends, and OMW.

I've been out of town for a couple of days, but I'm still here! Thanks for all the help.

I'm really in a rough spot here. I was so bowled over at my wife's response to the initial confrontation, (I was completely unprepaired) that I'm in a spot where I would need to re-confront her with clear "red handed" evidence. Anything less and we're split (Plan B without an A). I need to have this kind of evidence to set up a plan A. Now that she is tipped off to my methods (recording phone calls), she is going to be very hard to catch.

I think that the affair has cooled down in the area of actual physical contact, as she knows that I know. Anything that I could do now would be a shot in the dark. I gather that bugging her car with a voice recorder doesn't work too well, and I really can't afford a PI unless I really know that he will see something. I don't think that he would see any "red handed" activity anyway.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Forgot this...
It has been suggested several times that I contact the OM's W (think I got the jargon right). The problem is that I don't know her, and she doesn't speak english. Given my current state (see above) I would need iron clad evidence to expose the affair to anyone. Besides, I know that I'm not the one who caused this (in the immediate sense), but I would be the bearer of some really really bad times for her, and I'm reluctant to do that to someone else.

I really have a daily battle with the "ignorance is bliss" monster. Sometimes (especially when things are somewhat normal and smooth) I just want to bury my head in the sand. How do others deal this?

I am a wayward wife who has been recently exposed. It doesn't sound like your wife will confess this, and yes it does sound a bit bogus. My h put spyware on my computer, and that is what he used to gather "some" evidence. Right now you want to be dead wrong, and he did too, but if you want to continue on with this you must prepare yourself for possibly finding out the TRUTH.

I would not suggest going to the wife just yet, and I would guess that at least for a little while she will steer clear of her affair if she is having one. You 'almost' caught her, she is going to be afraid and walking on eggshells, but if indeed she is having an affair that won't last forever.

You sound more than willing to try to make your marriage work, even if she has had an affair. I understand that you need her to confess this, in order to even begin the tough road back in your marriage.

I know I am probably the last person you were wanting to post to you, but I do wish you luck, and I am sorry you are in this pain.

Actually I am really glad that you responded, Toni_29again. One of the things that I am struggling with is the somewhat peaceful limbo that we are in right now. She feels tremendous guilt at what she did, and things are quite good between us (albeit temporary I'll bet). We can't move on and start realy healing until there is full disclosure, but we won't get there until I can have an undeniable confrontation. She is not computer savvy, and so spyware won't work. They were mostly phone based, and my insight there is gone.

What I'm especially interested in is if you can share any insight as to what my wife's thought processes are in this limbo. She is still close to the OM as they work together. He would probably split if he knew that I knew what I do, so I don't think that she has come clean with him. How would she be explaining this cooling off? Is there anything that you could share? I'd appriciate it very much.

Any updates?

Well, we are in limbo. I really can't start a fullblown plan A in the classic sense. I am trying to meet the emotional needs, but as there was no good confrontation (she didn't admit it), we are in limbo. I am waiting for either conclusive evidence or the A to die on its own. I still have to fight the fog. After a great week, it rolled in this weekend big time. After her saying lots of mean things, and me trying to stay logical and supportive, it rolled out again. She says "what's wrong with me?" Something will have to give; I don't think that I can go through dense fog to many more times.

Read about Plan A here. It has nothing to do with whether she admits affair. Most WS's lie about it and continue to lie. Plan A is to show your wife what a good husband you can be.

Please start Plan A right away. Then post and let us know how it is going.

I'm no expert, but I thought that 1/2 of plan A was to identify and provide for the WS's emotional needs. The other half is to get her to go through "withdrawl" of her addictive A. We cannot start this part of the process until the existance of the A is on the table. How can we have the NC letter etc. I am being non-confrontational (until it hurts!), and doing my best to meet her emotional needs. She is in the "double dipping" place, getting love and support from us both. Can plan A work if we stay here and she finally realizes that the OM is just a passing thing (or she realizes that it is not)???

Read "Surviving An Affair" by Dr Willard Harley.

thought that 1/2 of plan A was to identify and provide for the WS's emotional needs.
Yes, it is.

The other half is to get her to go through "withdrawl" of her addictive A.
You help her get through withdrawal. You don't get her to go through it. And withdrawal only happens when the affair is over.

I couldn't believe that she could deny what she had done.
You could probably show her pictures and she would deny. Then what?

You know what is going on. You don't have to get her to admit anything.

She feels tremendous guilt at what she did

We can't move on and start realy healing until there is full disclosure,
Huh? What is she feeling guilty over then?

but we won't get there until I can have an undeniable confrontation.
As I said above she can deny ANYTHING she wants to (and probably will).

I don't think that I can go through dense fog to many more times.
You have not been out of the fog to go back into it.

Read the links below.