I just found out my wife has been having an affair for at least a year or two possibly longer with someone almost half our age.
I feel totally devastated and am trying to figure out how to confront her. I have the opportunity to catch her in act, but I don't know if that is the right way to approach it.
We are both almost 40, have been together 17 years. We have two young children. For the last year there have been some strange things that made me suspicious.
She is a commission only sales person in the mortgage industry, so as thing have been getting hot in the housing market, she has been coming home later and later saying in is because she is swamped with work. I believed that because I know how busy it can be.
We made the decision a couple years ago that since it was getting so busy, and money was good, that I would stay home to raise the kids while she worked. We decided we wanted one of us to do that, and she preferred it was me, because she didn't want to lose all her contacts in the industry.
So I have been taking care of the kids while she works and she is rarely home before 7:30 at night. That has been tough, but she said it is because people shop for houses in the evenings, so that is why she has to be available until then.
About a year ago when she was showing me pictures of the kids on her phone she accidentally came across a topless picture of herself. She quickly stated she took that to send to me but forgot about it. That isn't the kind of we send each other, so that started making me question.
Then a few months later she started taking selfies of herself, which also is not normal. Although it is probably abnormal for people our age, we aren't on Facebook Twitter etc. So her taking seflies again had me questioning things.
I was rely torn at this point, because I wanted to know if she was cheating, but part of me felt like there is no way she would do that, and the other part didn't want to know.
I decided i needed to know, so I decided to enable google tracking on her phone in the fall.
She drives a lot for work, and I couldn't figure out any pattern that would imply cheating with the tracking. So I tried really hard to let it go.
The Christmas came, and I when I was opening up some packages that were delivered, she freaked out grabbing one with her name on it, telling me to not open it as it was a present for me.
I kept track of the package until she opened it, and made sure i knew where she put it. I checked it when she wasn't around and I found mens clothing that wasn't my size. Also some bed sheets. I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt and figured maybe they shipped the wrong size.
Christmas came and I never got the clothes, and the sheets never appeared either.
Since then to now, I have been pretty sure she has been cheating, but anytime I would try to find out more I would chicken out, not wanting to know because that would be devastating. I also couldn't bear the thought of divorce. Not only do I love her, but if she left me I don't want to lose my kids for half of the time.
However it has been slowly eating away at me, and have been miserable and physically sick. I have had a few different doctors appointments trying to find a solution. But deep down I know part of my sickness is from trying to ignore something I think is happening.
That brings me to this week. I finally got the courage a couple nights ago to check her phone, as I know the password. She texts literally hundreds of messages a day, so it was difficult to find anything. I couldn't find any numbers that she repeatedly texted except for her girl friends.
When I was about to give up, I noticed there was one girl named Erica who texted her all day and all night. Reading the texts they were things like "I love you babe" "can't wait to get together again" etc.
I know girls can talk like that sometimes, but something felt off. So I ran some searches on the number and found out it belonged to a male massage therapist named Eric not Erica.
I then realized on her phone there is a trash section for deleted messages that I didn't know was there, and she obviously didn't either.
As soon as I clicked on that, I found all the messages from him. Very explicit sexual content etc. Apparently they have been doing this for what appears to be a couple years. Not only that, but he has been buying our kids gifts, and my wife is discussing having kids with him when he is ready.
It gets worse from there. I decided to check the google history I had turned and cross referenced it with the text messages talking about seeing each other.
She has been visiting hotels for sometimes 3 to 4 hours a day during work days. Some days she is at an address I found out is his house.
Meanwhile the kids and I are home hoping mommy will make home in time to play.
Again it gets even worse. I check her day planner while she is in bed and find all the hotel dates are in her planner under a certain acronym. I can now cross reference the texts, the google history and the planner to days she is at the hotels.
But wait there's more. She pays the bills and balances the checkbook. I decide it is time check that out as well. I find that on those same days she goes to be with him she withdraws exactly $1,000 in cash from our bank account.
I am honestly in shock right now. I feel so alone and helpless.
I appreciate anybody that took the time to read all that. I just found out tonight and have been up all night throwing up unable to sleep. So sorry for the long ramble.
As it is now, I found in the deleted texts that tomorrow they they are meeting again at a hotel. I am unsure what to do. I want to confront her, but don't know if I should talk to her in person and ask her straight out if she is having an affair, or if I should show up at the hotel.
I don't want to cause a scene or anything at the hotel, I just want to see her face knowing she is caught and hopefully she will see the pain it has caused. I have no interest in even addressing the other guy.
On the flip side, if I confront her the night before she meets with him, that would be later tonight, I would be curious to know if she would be honest about it with me, or if she would lie.
I worry too if I confront her the night before and she lies about it, she will make it harder to catch her in the act the next time. I can always just show her the proof I have, but i know she will get upset i got on her phone and will probably blame it on a friend who used it etc.
Anyway not sure how to proceed but at the very least I feel somewhat better just getting feeling out. Thank you to anybody who listened or who has any ideas on how to proceed with confronting her about the situation.