SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

If you can afford a PI do it. There are people here who can help you find the other spouses name and social media accounts but that may take awhile.
Don’t let your WW gaslight you. Get a calendar and start making your own timeline then see if it matches phone records, credit card bills, cash withdrawals etc. Try to get her work schedule and open up her email, text, and other online accounts.
This is war.
The best thing to do is expose the affair to his spouse. The best thing I ever did was call the OBS. It opened up the proverbial can of worms but this time on them. My husband spilled details and after that, was devastated about what he did. He thanks me every day even after 18 years.
The second best thing is to work on you. Take control. Gray rock. No discussions unless it’s about the finances or children. If your WW is not forthcoming then expose affair to his boss. Who knows how many other women he has treated this way.

[This message edited by crazycatlady at 6:26 PM, Wednesday, March 20th]

TimD,

Thank you for responding. I'm going to summarize some of the tactical next steps that has been advised to you on this thread.

You should tell your wife that these are non-negotiable actions she needs to do if she is truly remorseful and wants to stay married. Tell her this is her one last chance to come clean, at the penalty of you immediately filing for divorce. She must:

* Provide a full written timeline of the affair so far.
* Agree to a polygraph test
* Give you open access to her phone and all her social media apps/accounts
* Enable location tracking on her phone
* Allow you to see all her work email and Teams/Slack chats with the OM
* Show her work calendar
* Agree to never again delete any interactions/texts/DMs etc. with the OM
* Verifiably tell the OM that their fling is over
* Verifiably begin looking for a new job
* End or pause all work travel or any upcoming solo or "girls" trips
* Avoid 1:1 meetings with OM, even if it impacts her work
* Get a full-panel STI test done and share the results
* Agree to undergo individual therapy to get to the root of her "why"

On your own, you should:

* Consult a good family lawyer. Talk to at least 3 and if you have the means, retain one
* Get a VAR device and keep in on you all the time to record your conversations with your WW
* Get her phone and use Dr. Fone or similar software to recover deleted texts and pictures
* Practice self care. Avoid alcohol. Eat well. Exercise regularly. And get a lot of sleep. IF sleep is hard to come by, talk to your doctor and get a prescription for sleep aids
* Practice 180. This means no intimacy or hugs. No begging her. Keep the conversations restricted to kids related stuff or her affair related remedial actions above. Ask her to sleep in a different room going forward.

Others please add or edit the above!

Thank you again for all the advice. I really appreciate all the comments and support.

I just don’t know what to do. I can hardly type this as my hands can’t stop shaking. We are still in the same house, I haven’t left because I am really close and love my kids so much. This morning, she asked for a hug – which I vehemently refused. Sorry if this is random – it’s all just so raw, new, and painful right now.

I am so very sorry, Tim, you are here. It is so early days for you to understand what to do, this is for sure. However, please do not do things you could regret. For example, if SHE cheated, why should YOU leave the family home and deprive yourself of your children's presence and love? She is the WAYWARD SPOUSE, so if anyone has to leave it isn't you! She may ask some friends to give her shelter if you cannot bear her presence, but she put herself in a bad position so she can try to think what solution she can put in place if you RIGHTLY don't want to share your home with her anymore. She could think about it before.

With regards to telling the other man's wife, I really don't agree with that. Maybe in the future, I am not even sure about the future, you have nothing to do with her and you can't hold on your shoulders the problems of others, not now, now your priority is YOU and your children, so all the rest is irrelevant. Check you haven't got any STDs. Do not believe the bullshit your wife is saying, consult a lawyer to see how it could end up if you divorced, but if you love your children, do not get away from them.

Take some time to yourself to make hypothesis of your future, more than anything start therapy and take care of yourself and your children.

I am a betrayed spouse and for a long time I did not even feel anger, I was only so numb and in disbelief and I still think it is all so wrong and unfair.

Be strong, eat healthily, do not get into drinking or drugs, please exercise and take time to rest because this is such a draining experience. A big hug.

Of course you tell the other betrayed spouse. It gives them agency in their own life, and more importantly for you, the AP now has his hands full trying to placate his wife who will be watching him like a hawk. It's only a benefit to you, OP.

TimD:

Very sorry you find yourself here. Just to add a few thoughts: do not underestimate the trauma you have suffered. One day you are happily married with a young family, the next your world and reality is turned upside down. Do seek out IC to help you deal with the trauma. The problem with going to MC is that your M did not fail, your WW did. She needs to do a ton of work on herself no matter what the future holds, to become a trustworthy partner. IC is a must.

Accept no blame for her cheating. Nothing you did or didn’t do in your M caused her to cheat. You don’t control her. She has to own her choices and betrayal. If she was unhappy in your M she had many options to address her issues, without cheating. Infidelity is almost always about the cheater: selfishness, need for validation, or low self esteem.

This is all incredibly unfair to you and your children. You did not deserve to have your M and family disrupted. We have all been there. It is something we all have had to live with. You will be hit with waves of anger or resentment. Unfortunately there is no way around it. You have to go through it.

Take care of you and your children is a priority. Give yourself time to heal. Watch your WW’s actions not her words.

Question about your WW’s work: if she is a contractor, can she drop this client and still maintain her job? If you should end up in D, it may be better if she is employed.

Good luck. Keep posting.

I have read your story and the advice given. Most of it is spot on. For any chance of R (if that is what you ultimately decide upon), your WW must do backflips to save the marriage. That begins with WW finding another job immediately. Given the fact that she was involved with one of the owners, I would suspect he might provide her with some type of paid leave until she finds a new employer. That being said, part of her contrition must involve a potential sexual harassment case against her present employer. THIS IS A MUST. Find an attorney who specializes in such lawsuits so that the merits of such a case can be expertly evaluated. The fact that the WW seemed complicit in the affair is not necessarily a defense given the power dynamics involved. The employer must pay dearly. Even if R is out, your WW should still proceed with such a claim. The employer is a predator and must pay for his behavior.

I agree with much of the advice that has been given. Probably the easiest way to get to the truth with a spouse who you believe truly wants to stay married is to issue an ultimatum.

If you are honest with me about what happened there is still a possibility that with hard work we can still have our marriage. No guarantees but I will work with you on it. However, if you lie to me we are over in an instant. Don’t pass go, but we head directly to divorce. No discussion.

I will be doing a deep dive on this. Going thru everything, so if you are lying I will find out. You may not believe it, but the riskier move is to lie as we won’t come back from that. She still may minimize, but this is the best avenue to get her to fess up.

Btw, it’s pretty clear that she cheated on this trip. Only you will know if that a dealbreaker if it was an ONS.

Agree with the hard line others have suggested.

You said your "CW" would not give you the information on the AP's wife... does that mean your wife is protecting the AP?

If so, that would be a no go for me. It may take a few days for her to come around but if she continues to protect him I would not accept that answer. Dealbreaker.

Of course if you are going to D you should consult a lawyer about her staying employed until the D because it may help the terms. Then you can hire a PI and burn down posom as appropriate.

WWTL

the riskier move is to lie as we won’t come back from that

Yup

Her winning play to this point has been lying. A goal should be to do what is necessary to make her winning play being honest. If you want to stay with her that is. Otherwise work to not care about whatever it is that she did, and make as clean of a break as possible

TimD,

This is my first reply to someone else's post. I feel compelled to respond, because i was in an identical situation 3 months back when i first posted on this forum. Caught my wife of 15 years sexting with her boss. Two kids (10/12), relatively happy life before affair. Attempting R.

Few things I've learnt (many are her words):
1. You will find WW in the first several weeks to be disengaged and downright aloof to your pain. In my case WW was still pining for her AP and this abrupt discovery was hard for her to deal with. If she wants to R, she will eventually come out of the fog and have an honest conversation with you. Usually, this is the turning point in the R process.

2. Expect regular weak human instincts when cornered like minimizing, gaslighting, etc. She will be very reluctant to talk about the physical aspect of her affair. In my case, it was - we just talked, only in office, just held hands... She will minimize and downplay these primarily to protect herself. You will have to pry these out of her if you want to know the details.

3. Trickle truth. As weeks go by, the pain will lessen and hopefully you two will give a shot at R. However, beware that there will be more truths you will discover about the A along the way. In my case, i discovered that she lied to me about meeting only in office, but frequented a nearby bar close by after work. Not only was this dishonest, but she also risked friends and neighbors seeing them there. Anyways, such discoveries will throw a spanner in the works and you will probably need to restart the R.

4. Like in your case, my WW still works in the same place under the same boss. They see and interact with each other every day (although professionally). She is looking for a different job for a few months, but no luck so far. This is annoying and she knows about it, but i think we will be in this situation for a while. You will probably have to deal with this too.

5. Finally, there will be several times during the R when one or both of you will question if this is even worth the effort. In my case (and probably yours) not ripping apart the family for the kids sake was the driving force. Whenever we are in the dumps, we remind ourselves of the reason we are really giving this a shot. Whatever reason you might have to attempt R is worth it. It might not be love always.

Brace yourself for a rough ride, and good luck.

Hi Tim. Others have kind of said this, but it's not really the sexual acts that destroy the marriage. It's the lying and the secrets. It's the months or years of trickle truth. When they get caught they are still in a mindset that you can be handled or controlled since that's what they have been doing to hide the affair. They convince themselves the most damaging thing to the marriage would be full truthful disclosure. So, they give you a watered down version. If that doesn't work, they give you a little more information in hopes of that being the end of it. Round and round you go.

The long disclosure is torture to the BS. While a full truthful disclosure is super painful, it's less painful in the long run. Most BS's have a gut feeling when the story doesn't make sense. A lot of times we ignore it because we don't want to face the horrible truth that we more or les know to be true. The WS is happy to let you live in denial, but the truth does have a way of making it's way to the light of day. When it does, your world blows up again and the you're on to the next thing that didn't make sense. It can be a long and painful cycle. I'm the poster child for allowing a long trickle truth scenario to play out. I leaned towards denial and dismissed a lot of advice I received on this site for a long time.

Some of the tactics discussed on this forum can come off as a punishment for the WS. They aren't. Things like a hard 180, scheduling a polygraph, contacting the OBS, and contacting an attorney put you in the driver's seat. Not the driver's seat of your marriage, but of your life. She has been very selfish in all of this, and I feel it's appropriate for you to be selfish right now. If you love her and want there to be a real chance at R, play hardball now and spare both of you the long drawn-out process I described. Give her your boundaries and stick to them.

Find the OBS and let her know. Spouses enter a partnership when they get married, and when one cheats, in my opinion they are committing fraud. They are allowing the other spouse to make life and financial decisions based on a lie. The WS often benefits from these decisions. Both WS's are running a scam on the BS's. If you got scammed by the prince of Nigeria who needed you to wire him money so he could save his imprisoned father, you would warn other potential victims. This is no different.

Tim

I want to add to some of the advice offered, and maybe offer a perspective that is based on quite a lot of practical experience – both personal and through others.

First of all, this is a long-term process. No matter if you divorce or reconcile this will take months and even years to recover from. Just keep that in mind, because relatively few things will be resolved in the next days or weeks. Just like a marathon-runner takes care to pace himself and resupply his energy, you should be looking at how to best physically and mentally cope during the long tough time ahead.
Rehydrate, eat (preferably healthy, but if your appetite is shot then grab fruit and nuts and an occasional hamburger), exercise… It’s fine to take time off from your problems… A lifetime of experience has taught me they will still be there when you come back, only a more rested and relaxed you can possibly deal better with them.

Second: This can end in one of two GOOD ways, but if not handled properly will end in the WORST way. The good ways are divorce or reconciliation. The absolute worst way is one that is too common: Its where you find an excuse to why you have to stay married and the two of you do NOT work out the infidelity issues. She might stop doing THIS man, and maybe never cheat again, but until the two of you deal with infidelity you are still in infidelity-mindset. See plenty of miserable posters here that insist they cant divorce because of the money or the kids or whatever, and promise us and themselves that the minute junior leaves for college they are out… Why sell yourself so short, keeping in mind we have this one lifetime to find happiness: Reconcile completely or divorce completely – both give you paths to happiness.

Don’t fear divorce and accept that it’s a very likely outcome and NOT the worst.
In stating this I am not encouraging you to divorce. What I am trying to get across is that if you and your wife do not deal completely with infidelity; the why’s, the how, the removal of the old trust etc, what we call reconciling; you are better off divorcing.
It makes perfect sense to understand your options. That includes IMHO that you get some legal advice on how a divorce would look like and what can give you some edge or advantage. You will be surprised to learn that little does, this is a relatively fair process that does NOT lean towards one spouse or the other.
Since you mention your state, one thing you will quickly learn is that infidelity has minimal to no impact on D. With that in mind, save the money suggested for a PI. It’s not as if you have to prove to her or to you that she’s cheating. Already know. The other info (is he married, his wife etc) can easily be found.

Keep in mind that reconciliation requires you both are 100% committed to reconciling… Like her statement that she will only quit her job when and if you won’t divorce and when and only if she has another job lined up… That is NOT 100% commitment… It’s more like an alcoholic that agrees to only drink beer and skip the vodka. Even if you want to reconcile, then you should keep in mind that she needs to commit to R 100%. You can afford to give her time to reach that stage, but that requires actions from her that validate to you she’s committed. An acceptance that this can end in D and that’s better than incomplete reconciliation gives you a LOT of power and can give her the incentive to commit to the marriage.

Third: There are very few constants in human behavior. Like… none of us can 100% tell you that even if your wife promises the affair is over it isn’t… Or that if she says this was the first time that she’s being truthful. What we can tell you is that experience indicates that certain things have certain patterns. Like in probably 99 out of 100 the BS does not get the truth right away. In 8 out of 10 instances the affair isn’t over per se – it goes quiet and maybe dark but will restart. In 9 out of 10 instances the affair DOES end once you tell the OM spouse (somehow being dumped by Loverboy is a real downer for the romance).
One of the behavior patterns is that it’s rare – like unicorn rare – that a WS is R-material fresh off d-day. Right now, she might be trying to save her marriage to save her lover, her job and her reputation. To reconcile only ONE factor is important: Save her marriage. With time she might realize that the only way forwards is by being an open book, total accountability and the whole truth to you, and at that is when you two have a shot at reconciling.
With that in mind – listen to our advice on what steps might make sense. We won’t always be 100% correct, but our experience could help you avoid some of the bigger pitfalls. Be firm on the job going being a condition. Expose the affair to stakeholders – like the OM wife and his business partners. Let friends of the marriage, parents, siblings… know that you two are considering divorce because of her infidelity. This isn’t for shame or revenge, but our experience strongly suggests that once you remove all the reasons she might have for wanting to reconcile – the false reasons – and she is only left with the one that matters is when things might start improving.

hat being said, part of her contrition must involve a potential sexual harassment case against her present employer. THIS IS A MUST.

Sorry have I missed something? Was she being harassed sexually or did she engage in a relationship that implies own choices? You only file a harassment case if it can be proven that she did not want him and she was "forced" to accept a relationship so she wouldn't get fired. And I frankly doubt this is the case.

Of course you tell the other betrayed spouse. It gives them agency in their own life, and more importantly for you, the AP now has his hands full trying to placate his wife who will be watching him like a hawk. It's only a benefit to you, OP.

now I understand and it is clear. There is no generosity in wanting to inform the other spouse, nobody gives a rat about their agency it is only done so you know the other person is kept "hostage" by their own spouse and out of the way!!! I never thought about it in these terms, how naive! However don't you think it is cunning and dishonest? Ok, I understand dishonest was somebody else but do you really want to become the same?

[This message edited by Molly65 at 3:13 PM, Thursday, March 21st]

Please tell the other spouse. She has the right to know she is living a lie AND her health might be at risk for STDS.

I wish my husband's affair partners husband told me when he found out. He knew 3.5 months before I found out, if he did it would have saved a great deal of heartache for him and me.

He didn't want to hurt me. LOL. It was ten times worse when I found out knowing I could have nipped their little rendezvous in the bud before it got that far had I known.

[This message edited by annb at 3:22 PM, Thursday, March 21st]

Interesting turn of events... the OM's spouse contacted me. She found out as well. The double-whammy is extremely satisfying, but still devastating! We talked and we cried and we shared our grief and stories. She provided a little more color to what was said by my WS but pretty much had the same information as I did - she still had his phone with all the text messages and the sorted details. She had a history of ALL communications they had going back to when they she contracted with the company in late January. This gal is a smart cookie, she checked for deleted messages, etc. As reported to me, this disgusting affair had started that weekend on that Saturday evening... which still doesn't make this right! She also read me the text that my WS sent to the OM yesterday afternoon telling him to completely cut off all contact with her and she blocked his number - but again we'll see.

We also had the in-laws take the kids last night so we could talk. I don't think I've ever heard her cry that hard before when expressing her regret, faking, I don't know, maybe. But, I have know this person for 14 years and have never witnessed such guilt.

I have taken steps to move forward already (thank you 180 - Fucking brilliant!). As an odd matter of fact, and completely coincidental, I changed the coffee cups I regularly use this morning - seeing this made her start balling again. She sees this as trying to erase her from my life - maybe yes, maybe no ;). I had been drinking a ton of coffee in the morning and with that a lot of honey. I used to body-build and have made changes to how I live my life in order to become a better person for ME and my kids, which includes nutritional changes. I will be reborn new and stronger from the ashes of this BS!

All that said, we are going to a marriage therapist starting next week to talk about everything that happened and look for a chance at R. If that doesn't work well, then there's the D option - which I am surprisingly ok with.

It takes a lot of effort to consciously block out what I already know but I have to if I want to heal myself. I know this sounds a bit manic, and I know there will still be moments of sadness and and feeling like I am in a pit, but as oddly as this sounds - I kind-of feel OK. What happened does not define who I am as a person and I will not let it strip away who I am or my self-worth!

Stay strong everyone!

T/j..

Molly...we have had women who contracted HIV, and died because of infidelity. Women who have contracted stds, and didn't find out until they lost the baby,or they were told they were infertile, because of the untreated std.

Honestly, it doesn't matter why a bs tells the obs. Even if it's out of revenge. In the end, the obs gets important, critical info that could save their life.

Not one person said anything about hostages. The dramatics, and exaggerations, are insulting, and unhelpful.

Surely you can share a different perspective without being insulting and rude.

[This message edited by HellFire at 7:06 PM, Thursday, March 21st]

FSED,

Great update!

It's a good sign that the OBS contacted you with details already!

I strongly urge against going to MC together at this stage. Marriage counselors are biased towards keeping the marriage alive and might encourage you to rug-sweep her betrayal.

Secondly, your wife’s tears aren't necessarily a sign of remorse. Guilt and regret at being caught often drive such emotions in WSes immediately post-D-day. Remorse requires full disclosure and empathy with the BS.

Can you please clarify whether your WW has agreed to give a detailed timeline?

Has she admitted that they had sex?

Reconciliation cannot begin until the last lie has been told

[This message edited by Ragn3rK1n at 7:21 PM, Thursday, March 21st]

Is it just me being the super untrusting person I am, or did anyone else think the OBS spouse might not have been the OBS? It sounds like all the information given was all the information that was already known. Seems like in other posts these conversations result in a lot of unknown information being received. It’s probably just me. Did she give you contact info and offer to continue to share information as time passes?