My wife of 12 years just was traveling with her job. She told me very specifically she would be in San Diego and it turns out she was in Los Angeles. That isn't where the confusion ends. She told me she was booked at the Hampton Inn and she was, in fact, staying at a small "boutique" hotel that does not seem like somewhere her work would send her. When confronted she initially denied it and then said her "friend" recommended it and they had great weekday rates.

This all comes at a time when I suspected something was "off." Our sex life has crashed to an all time low. She has had more and more meetings at dinner time...forcing me to get home in time to make dinner for the kids. Something I don't like in a wife.

Do I confront directly? Or do I snoop? Help

I feel your pain. Before confronting, I would personally do some more snooping. Do you have access to cell phone records? This is usually a dead giveaway (at least it was for me. 4600 texts in one month... uh, yeah). The fact that your sex life has crashed too also makes me wonder. When my WH was starting his EA and was conflicted between her and me, he said that he needed to focus on himself and figure out his true feelings and having sex with me may alter his feelings. 3 mos later he came out with the EA that eventually turned into a PA and he is still with her 10 mos later. She's divorced, and I have filed (for protection basically). What other weird things is she doing? Going off by herself to think? Exercising a lot? Not eating?? Not sleeping?? Pushing close friends away or not wanting to do things with you, the kids or as a family?

The thing I learned was it will be denied. I had proof of it and it was still denied. Call the hotel and see if she stayed with anyone. Hell, if you are that worried about it, I would call her work and see where she stayed. Tell them she loved it and you would like to surprise her with a trip back there for your anniversary or something. Chances are..... it was a hoax. She may not have been traveling for work after all.

in the mean time, start protecting yourself and your kids. Pull savings out and put in a separate acct she can't touch. When they get in the "fog", they do stupid things and draining accts is def one. My husband pulled out over $500 in 4 days from our emergency cushion in our checking acct... left me screwed. Protect yourself. Get Surviving an affair and start reading it.

Snoop.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch .... you behave very normally.
You do not ask her a million questions.
You have fun and do whatever it takes for her to lower her guard.

Do a financial forensics.
Put a GPS on her vehicle.
Hire a PI.
Put a VAR in her car.


SNOOP !

Spy thread

Good advice Never, except this:


This may backfire on him if she really IS traveling for business and the hotel was legit. Word could get back to her. Better to do snooping in a more stealth-like matter for now.

Definitely get "Surviving an Affair" and hold off on confronting for now. Gather your intel and whatever you do, DO NOT tell your WW? about this site.

YEs.... and whatever you do, try to act normal!!! Make yourself as attractive as possible and act that what she is doing doesn't bother you. She will def think she is in the clear. Also, check her email, facebook etc. If she changes the passwords to her email, that's a clue she is hiding. I suspected something also when my husband put a password lock on his phone to get into his email and also changed the password for his NEW email acct.

And yes, anything she tells you to try to justify what she is doing.... IGNORE the smoke screen. It is BS..... She will rewrite history and make everything be your fault You didn't do this or that... but yet did she ever TELL you that she wanted you to do it or needed this or that??

Very true meggy....

Wow, thanks for all the replies so far. Seems like everyone is confirming what I was hoping was paranoia.

princessmeggy...what do you mean by "gather your intel"

I will read Surviving and Affair

Do any of you find that all this snooping makes you emotionally drained?

I will admit... yes. And honestly, we fought a lot more b/c of the lies and lack of responsibility he was having then. It was ridic..... the fact that she was a friend made it that much worse. I was then fighting with her too b/c they were both denying but the whole town was saying you 2 are liars!

JustStopIt,

I'm sorry you have to be here but you are at the right place to handle this situation. Please read the articles and read SAA ("Surviving An Affair"--a great manual by Dr. H) ASAP. You need to get up to speed on MB plans ASAP.

Unless someone is truly a very paranoid and insecure person, when one suspects their spouse is having an affair, sadly they usually turn out to be correct. The activities & deceptions you described above are classic for workplace-affairs (the most common venue anyway) and they are eerily similar to what I heard heard/experienced from my WW. Bottom line is...it is very likely your wife is having an affair and it is very likely that the OM is someone she works with.

Do NOT confront her now! 3 reasons why:
1) She will just lie to you (WSs almost never admit the truth until presented with inconvertible truth).
2) She will know you are suspiciuous and probably start covering her tracks bettter and better (which makes it harder for you to get the REAL TRUTH).
3) Your exposure, which is KEY here, is most devastating and effective in breaking the affair if it comes ALL AT ONCE and is a SURPRISE to both affair-partners. It is best to not give them any warning in advance.

What you need to do now is SNOOP QUIETLY and gather evidence w/o either of them knowing. There are entire threads here dedicated to helping BSs snoop. Excellent places to garner electronic evidence are cellphones and computers used by your WW. These threads detail software and devices (voice recorders, keystroke recorders, GPSs, etc.) that can be used to surveil email, texts, auto whereabouts, etc. There are a lot of things you can do discreetly to gather info--but be careful not to get caught.

IMHO, the absolute best and most effective and least risky way to snoop is to HIRE A PI. I strongly recommend you do so. Borrow $ if you have to. Please DO IT ASAP. Trust me...I wish I had way back when...would have saved me a lot of trouble.

A PI will usually be able to provide you with irrefutable evidence quite quickly. A PI is also very unlikely to get noticed as neither of them know the guy and PIs are experts at blending in and being discreet. Furthermore, a PI can provide you with all kinds of valuable info on the OM (his wife, friends, family, career, residence, etc.) which you are gonna need and use when it comes to your nuclear exposure later.

FIRST, gather the evidence you need and bring it here to discuss your next step.

Good luck

It also can't hurt to read about Plan A.

Its going to hurt when you find out that she is in fact having an affair. But prepared for that. But if you want to fight it you are going to need your head attached. Try to be calm, you can win this.

Get a key logger on the pc, or access to her email somehow.

When you confirm the vets will help you with a solid plan.

I am four months farther down the road. You can beat this if its happening, life will get better.

Part of the problem is that she uses a separate work computer and I don't think I can access it. Her laptop at home is passworded as is her email. I also read recently about a DH getting arrested for hacking into W's email, so that makes me nervous. I will look into the PI, although I have NO idea who this OM is, so I don't have much detail to give a PI other than intuition.

Just,

HIRE THE PI! Please listen--I speak from experience--HIRE A PI!

Trust me, any decent detective (a google search will suffice to find one and it is perfectly legal) will have little trouble tracking her and she will lead the PI right to the OM. Guaranteed!

Do NOT avoid
Do NOT delay
Do NOT bury your head in the sand in denial

Frankly, I would check her cellphone and keylog her home laptop. Her work computer may be legally unreachable but anything inside your marital home is fair game. Putting a VAR & GPS in her vehicle are other great techniques. You need to be protecting your finances as well, so check phone bills, credit card statements, and bank accounts for suspicious or unusual activity.

The beauty of having a professional PI is that he can handle much of this for you...

A word of advice, JustStopIt:

Create ONE thread and post everything there. It's far easier for people to follow your story and respond to you that way.

You might ask the moderators to fold your multiple threads into one.

Thanks Fred, will consider it. My "story" is my primary concern. I added the exposure thread more to learn about others experiences...didn't think it would be harmful.

I can't recommend you check her cell phone enough....this was the main evidence i had gathered when i confronted my ww just two months ago. My wife was texting the om every 20 minutes during work hours as well as in the evenings behind my back.

If it's a company phone you'll find it difficult to access itemised records so i'd say you need to get your hands on the phone itself. If need be take it and leave the house, make an excuse to go to a shop or petrol station, do whatever it takes, then access the texts and if need be forward them to your own cell phone.

Just remember to delete any of the messages you forward to yourself from her phone so she doesn't find out you have them.

I would also try and distance yourself from what you suspect is going on for a moment and think hard about any other changes that she has done over the last few months or weeks.

Has she been dining out more often? trips to the cinema? trips shopping (but she has returned without buying anything new)? nights out with the girls more frequent? has she stopped talking about a close male friend (that previously she spoke regular about in conversation with you)?


Your in good hands here but as the other members have said, take action now and start "snooping" to establish what is going on. If you are correct and she is having an affair prepare yourself for lie after lie. I know that may sound harsh but thats just what my ww has done to me. Denial from the beginning when confronted (and i had also hired a pi as well) and blame directed at me for everything you could think of!

If she is anything like my wife and she is having an affair expect her to change into a complete stranger unlike the person you have known all this time.

Don't worry about the case of the husband and the emails. Being arrested is different than being convicted. He will likely go scott free. Why?

Because you have a right to know if you are having sex with someone who is having sex with someone else and is exposing you to diseases, AIDS, etc.

You also have to consider your financial future and that of your kids.

This would be waaaaaay to easy to defend for a good lawyer.

It won't go far.

Snoop.

When you find out, don't confront right away. You have to be careful to not reveal your snooping methods.

Confront when there is undeniable proof.

THEN you'll have to do what 90% of betrayed husbands here hesitate to do, are afraid to do, and are paralyzed by not doing it.

They fail to expose the affair.

Exposure is the number one thing I've seen on these forums for ending an affair. But it is the one thing that most men are afraid of doing.

But let's take things one step at a time. Get your intel first.

The OW's H hired a PI and that is what made my DH come clean. I am so thankful OWH did that. I didn't have to see the evidence as you will, but WS's are not as discreet as they would like to believe. A PI will resolve your doubts very quickly.

If you can't go that route, cellphone records are very telling as well as keyloggers. Gotta love technology!

Sorry you are here, but you have found the best resource to deal with your problem. As I have learned, A's follow a very similar script. In fact, your story sounds alot like mine.

I strongly suspect that your wife is having a PA with another man. As others have said, you need proof, otherwise your wife will take the A underground, making it that much harder to discover.

I caught my wife by looking at her 1000+ texts to the OM, but since you don't have access to her phone or computer, I think you would get your proof the first day you install a VAR in her car.

I later found out that my wife made a call to the OM every morning she went to work. So, the VAR will probably be the easist way to catch her.

But when you get the evidence and confront her, please be prepared for the roller coaster. You will need to follow exactly what the vets here tell you to do.

You wife is in a fog, and you will have to treat her like an addict. She will look you in the eye and lie about everything. Don't get too drained yet. You will need all the strength you can muster. But we all have experiences of our own, and the principles taught here to help you through this.

You guys are awesome!

Great advice on this thread, Juststopit! I hope you take it and then come back here with what you find. We will help you with next steps.

Welcome to Marriage Builders!

Thank you all. Great advice. Part of the difficulty is that my wife travels to the west coast, so having her followed is tough but I will contact PI's and see what they can do.

JustStopIt,

What's going on with your snooping?

Have you hired a PI???