Ok, so here is my situation. I am going to try and get the most important issues posted first and then will try and get to the other issues later as I have time.
My wife and I have been having problems for about a year now. During the Thanksgiving holidays I was working offshore and she was spending the holidays with her parents in town. We had gotten into an argument (I don't even remember what it was about) and I asked her if she even wanted to be married to me anymore. She said that she didn't know what she wanted anymore and I got mad and said that I was done and that I was fed up with all of the bull crap. She acted like she didn't even care and would get mad and blame everything on me.
Well the next day I talked to her and said that I didn't want to end our marriage and that we could work everything out. I mentioned that we could go to counseling together. She inititially said that she didn't thing she wanted to continue trying. Well after a few days of practically begging she finally said that she would "try" and see where things went from there. This was around a Sunday. I was scheduled to come home the next Thursday. Well the next day I was talking to her best friend trying to pump her for information and I was given a hint that she may be seeing someone else. I questioned her friend real hard but she wouldn't confirm it which pretty much did confirm it for me and then I tried to find out who it was and she still wouldn't tell me. The only thing she would tell me was that if something was going on then there was ways to find out. So, I started looking at the cell phone records and was CRUSHED to see all of the text messages and phone calls that were happening between her and this mysterious number that I didn't recognize.
I paid for a service to tell me who those phone numbers were and it confirmed my suspision that she was cheating on me. The gut she was talking to was a "deacon" at the church she was attending. I found all of this out on a Monday and continued researching till Tuesday gathering all of the info that I could. Turns out he was a Personal Trainer as well at the gym that she had signed up for on that Monday.
I'm going to fast forward to Thursday since I don't have a lot of time. So Thurday I get home around 5:30 that evening. I act like I don't know anything and wait till I can get my 3 kids all to bed. They usually don't go to bed till around 9 but I decided it couldn't wait any longer so I put them down around 8 that night. The wife wanted to know why I was putting them down so early and I told her that we needed to talk.
That's when I confronted her about the affair. At first she tried to deny it so I got her phone and showed her where she had hidden his number in her contact list under one of her girlfriends name. I had her dead to rights on this. I had printed out the pages upon pages of phone bills that showed where they were talking. (the bill doesn't list the messges they send, just that they are sending back and forthe to one another.) Once I showed her that she couldn't deny it she finally fessed up and said that they were just talking. I could tell that she was lying, but when I asked her if they had sex or any other relations I felt that she was telling the truth.
So, for some reason, even though she had cheated on me, I still wanted our marriage to work. I told her that she was going to have to choose him or me. I never once though our whole argument raised my voice or cursed or anything. I stayed calm on the outside even though I was boiling on the inside. Finally after an hour and me having to ask her three times to choose between him or me, she chose "our family". I don't know if she thought that would escape my attention but it didn't. I let her parents know what was going on and her sister. I told her that she could no longer talk to the dude any longer (he is married by the way) and she said that she wouldn't.
I told her that I would forgive her but that this couldn't ever happen again.
Next Day.
So the wife comes to me and said that she wanted to go to the gym and said that he wouldn't be there as he was at college that morning for classes. She said that she wouldn't go if I was uncomfortable with it. I figured that if things were going to work out then I needed to give her a chance to show me that I could trust her. Guess what, I couldn't. Her best friend called me while my wife was still at the gym. Turns out, he knew she was going to be there and he called her. My Father in Law had called his preacher and told him what was going on and the preacher called the guy and said that he wanted to meet with him immediately. So the guy had someone at the gym bring my wife a cell phone and told her that she needed to take the call in another room. He starts throwing a fit about him getting caught and started trying to cover his tracks. He asked my wife if I or the Preacher knew how physical it had gotten. (Turns out they had Kissed). At the the time that them two talked I didn't know about it. Once the wife and him got off of the phone she called her best friend and told her who then called me and told me what she knew.
Two Hours Later
So I confronted my wife about everything, telling her that I knew something was wrong. I acted like I didn't know what was going on though. I wanted her to tell me. Well she said that nothing was going on and that she didn't talk to him. Two hours later she finally told me the truth. I was happy that she finally was being honest with me. Or so I thought. This all happend on a Friday.
The next Wednesday her Father came out to talk to her. through this whole time my wife would never really open up to me. She had put up a wall to me. We weren't allowed to talk about anything relating the affair or us or our future. She said that we were going to work on it and "see where it goes". She told here dad that she wanted to be married to me and wanted to work it out. So I felt just a little bit better about things. After she kept putting off the counseling, I decided to take matters into my own hands and scheduled an appointment for Friday.
Friday
So, we go to counseling. I was completly honest with the counseler about everything. I told him that I would go through her phone at night and see who she was talking to. I never could find anything. He (counseler) roasted me pretty hard about that and said that I was going to have to trust her if things were going to work out. He was on me most of the session. Then he asked her if it was truly over and she of couse said that he was. So pretty much I left the session feeling guilty about what I have been doing. So we leave the counseler and decide to go to the mall and get the kids Christmas shopping done. She wanted to go look for a jacket for herself first at this all chick store so said that I would go look at another store while she was doing that. So I go to other stores but wasn't much into shopping so I head back to where she was. I walked into the store and she had her back to me looking at her phone. I really didn't think nothing of it. I walked up behind her and looked over her shoulder and all I saw was emails between her and him. She had made a secret email account that I didn't know about. She must have felt me looking over her shoulder because she said "Ooh" I didn't see you there. I asked why "the guys" name was all over her phone. She just got bigged eyed. I just looked at her and told her to put whatever she thought she was going to buy down and get to the truck as we were leaving and walked out. I had to wait at the truck for a few minutes until she came out. She tried to talk to me and I told her that there was nothing left to say.
All the way home she tried to get me to stop but I just kept on driving. I was furious. I asked her how she could go to counseling with me and then discuss our session with him with a clear conscience. So when we got home I started packing my bags to leave and she is begging me to stay. I told her that she had her shot at making things work. She begged and begged and finally I ended up staying. Through all of this I still wanted my marriage to work out. She told me that she would be the wife I wanted and be devoted to me like she should be. I got in touch with The Guy and told him that if I saw an more emails or calls or any other type of communicaition that I would be coming to find him. I told him that I would show up at his church, his house, his work or his school and that the blood would flow. He told me that it was over and that he wouldn't ever talk to her again.
As far as I know, from that day to this one, they haven't talked.
Here is my current problem. I feel like I am the only one throwing myself into making our marriage work. She doesn't EVER want to talk about anything regarding she and I or what had happened. I feel like I need to talk about it. I don't have a lot of close friends that I can talk to about how I'm feeling thus the reason that I am telling it all on this forum.
I tried to talk to her this evening. I told her that I needed to feel like I was her number 1 priority. She got mad and said that she is giving everything she can at this time. She said that "it would never be enough, no matter what she gave."
While I was gone this hitch at work, she went (Tuesday) and got her nose pierced behind my back. I told her that I didn't want her to get it. Plus, Christmas put a severe strain on my money so things were really tight at that time. She said that there was nothing wrong with what she did. I really disagree with her. I have noticed that she is trying some, but I feel like she should be giving more. She asked me if I wanted to go out to a movie tomorrow night (she asked me on Wednesday before I knew about the nose ring). I made her tell me if it was a date or not. If it wasn't then I wasn't going. she said that it was.
Anyways, the main issue we are having right now is that I feel the need to talk things through with her and she won't have it. She gets really mad and defensive and puts a wall up on me.
Sorry about the long post. I tried to hit the high points.
If you can get her to understand that talking about the A is part of your healing process, and that if she feels uncomfortable about talking, she will have to bear the consequences of her bad behavior and bring this A out in the open so that both of you can learn from this.
See, my wife hated talking about her affair's, but understood that in order for me to fogive, move on, and learn, she had to " do what ever it takes" to work on the marriage. Which ment answering the ughly questions I needed answered.
Its been 11 month since I confronted her but the 1st few months were a b*tch for her, I had alot of guestions. I would let her know 1 question I wanted to discuss in the AM, and then I would want the answer in the PM. This gave her time to do some soul searching. then the next morning I would ask another question.
This gave her time to deal with her guilt. It was hard for my W to discuss such evil behavior. I thought it would be to difficult to spill her guts all at once, so I took my time with her.
Yes, she must be honest with you, but, sadly, it will take time for her to come fully clean with you. She is still "numb" from the events.
So, be as patient as you can, but keep insisting on the transparency. Meanwhile, have her write a NC letter, and go with her to physically deliver it to the OM, and videotape her doing it.
And, Thomas Jefferson once said that "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty", and you being eternally vigilant (trust, but VERIFY) is the price of getting your M back on track, and hopefully, to get back any peace of mind.
She refuses to talk about it. It only pushes her further away. She just goes on the defensive about everything when I bring it up. Even if I just bring up how we can move further in our marriage rather than bringing up the affair.
The night that I caught her with the emails on her phone at the mall she called him to tell him they can't continue to talk or communicate. I wasn't there when the call took place but that is what she told me. So as far as I know it is over.
Thats scary, b/c you really don't know if she took it deeper underground. So quitly keep an eye on her.
Try this, in the AM tell her you want to discuss "x" and only "x" (one guestion you want an answer) and tell her we will talk in the PM. Then walk away, hopefully before she has a chance to respond. If she does say something tell her will talk about "x" in the evening, and leave it at that. Walk away.
Though out that day this will give her and you time to think about "x". When the evening comes you can explain why you need to talk about this particular question, with regards to you healing, forgiving, and moving forward. reassure her that you will not hold this against her,or judge her, or use the info for later. Explain to her that the thoughts and images that are running thru your head are hurting and you need her to take the pain away.
I hope she sees as my wife did that this openess will help rebuild the marraige, and that her defensiveness and frustration with the topic in general is not reassuring you that she is committed, and let her know that he behavior shows more secrecy then openess to rebuilding the marriage.
Reassure her that you understand that this is uncomfortable to talk about the affair, but all you need that evening is to answer that one guestion honestly and you will leave it at that. (for now).
Has she mentioned the words "I'll do what ever it takes to work it out"? If so then there you go, tell her you need answers and you need to express your feeling with out her being defensive, but to just listen. It is about "we" not "her" and she just needs to listen
I know easier said then done, but I stayed at it, I had to. It was an either talk to me or move on with out me. My take was I push her away and get no answers and move on with out her, or I get to say what I need to say and she can stay. It took me forever to get my W to open up, but it truely helped me and her, it got alot of things off her chest, and stopped me wondering what was really going on.
I quess if your W never stepped out side the marriage and confided with you instead, she wouldn't have the consequences of talking about such a painful subject. Just a thought!
One more thing, I would rather push my wife away, then spend the rest of our marriage not talking about her affairs. See I did that 13 years ago( her 1st one), and she and I continued down a very ughly marriage with very bad behaviors. Thank God we final confronted the issue, along with the issues that caused the 1st affair. That was 11 months ago.
Ok, sorry I haven't been on here to update anything. Here is what what happened.
While I was typing up the long original post, my wife was on her computer emailing the guy the whole time. Little did she know, I had put a keylogger on her computer that morning. We had some friends come over for a little new years eve get together so I didn't have a chance to check on her. After everyone had left my wife went into our room to watch tv and wind down. this was about 11:00 pm or so. So while she was watching tv, I logged onto her computer to see what she had been doing.
When I pulled up all of the emails that she had been sending and receiving, I was furious. The wife and the guy were talking about wishing they could be together that night. I would like to say that I walked into the room with her and confronted her calmly, but that would be a lie. I grabbed her camera that she takes professional photos with and walked into the room and started swinging it round and round and then smashed it on the floor into hundreds of little pieces. then I took her iphone and threw it into the wall (I tried to break it with just my hands but it was in one of those Otterboxes. Those things are tough).
She asked me what the hell i was doing so I just gave her the email address that she was using to communicate with him. I asked her how she thought that she was going to get away with it and why was she doing this to our family. She didn't have any answers.
I then go outside to call the guys wife. When she answered i told her my name and asked her if she remebered me from our previous conversation. Whe she told me she did I just started telling her everything that I knew. She wanted me to get a copy of all of the emails that they had been sending to one another and I told her that i would. She and I talked about an hour later and the guy was in the car with her. I got on the phone with him and told him exactly what I thought of him.
Back to the wife. So as I was talking to the guy and his wife, my buddy had come over and was trying to talk to my wife about why she was doing what she was doing. She said she didn't know why she was doing what she was doing. She admitted to having feelings for the guy, and would all but say that she was in love with him. But what she wanted was her family, including me. She wanted to work everything out. I told her that i wasn't interested in sharing her with another man, not physically or menatally.
Not that this is a reason for her doing what she did, but I think that she suffers from Post Partum Deppression. i took her to the doctor yesterday and the doctor wanted me to take her to be evaluated by a proffesional. The wife wasn't very keen on that because she thought that I would get there and have her committed for a couple oof days against her will. So she called her OB and set up an appointment for today to have bloodwork done to see if her hormones were all messed up. Something definately has to be wrong with her mentally. Nothing she does is making any sense. She has a councelling session tonight as well.
This whole time that since Friday night she has been saying that she wants me and her family, but her actions don't show it. She just acts like she is in a funk. She says that she knows she can be happy with me and that i can make her happy, she just doesn't know how to go about moving past everthing anymore.
I got my two girls (4 and 3) from their little playdate today and we three loaded up and went to the camp which is about 45 minutes away. I plan on staying up here for just a couple of days to try and figure out what to do and give her some time to see how things are going to be if she doesn't start doing what she needs to do.
Any advice would be great right now. Sorry if I am all over the place with this post. It's been a rough few days.
I'm glad you updated your situation - there is a lot you can do for your marriage - all that is required is for you to answer 'yes' to one question:
Do you want to save your marriage?
If so, then there's a lot you can do.
1st thing to do: apologize for destroying her property - ask for her forgiveness. I know that may seem both counter-intuitive and probably the last thing you want to do - but please consider this: in a healthy marriage, both partners treat each other with respect and honor. They don't go about destroying each others property - even in arguments.
An argument in a healthy relationship is faced by both partners together, because it is the normal process of fixing a problem or overcoming some obstacle or other.
On the other hand, destruction of property is a Love Buster, a Love Extinguisher, and also can create more troubles that you can imagine, especially if the relationship ends up in divorce court. This is a situation you must rectify as fast as possible, as completely as possible.
Next, there is much hope for you - your wife has stated clearly that she desires to work on the marriage, and that she is willing to choose you over the Other Man.
That being the case, there are three conditions that you can bring up with her that we recommend (at Affaircare.com) as being essential to heading your marriage in the correct direction. These conditions are essentially non-negotiable, although the WAY that at least the 2nd and 3rd conditions are met are certainly 'customizable' to fit your situation. Here is a thread on this forum on the three conditions, but here is a short summary:
1) You wife drafts a No Contact letter that YOU READ, and then YOU SEND to him - the letter must meet your approval and there must be no chance of her changing (or 'losing') it before it is sent. Here is the reason why No Contact is so vital to a recovering marriage. Here are some sample No Contact letters. Note how they are worded: this is quite important.
2) You and your wife both agree to transparent honesty - that is, all passwords, email accounts, social networking log ins, pone and text records, etc., are available instantly upon request.
3) You and your wife commit to working on the marriage.
This last condition is necessary because most affairs do not happen by accident, nor in a vacuum. They are almost always the wrong, or immoral, choice of a solution to a pre-existing problem in the marriage. The affair is rarely (if ever) the CAUSE of the marriage problems: it is usually a horrible attempt at solving the problem.
Finally, an affair is extremely exhilarating. In creates excitement and thrills that are addicting, and just as with any addiction, stopping the action causes withdrawal. It takes time to work past the initial loss of this thrill, and this is what is happening with your wife right now:
Quote:
...Something definately has to be wrong with her mentally. Nothing she does is making any sense. ... ...
This whole time that since Friday night she has been saying that she wants me and her family, but her actions don't show it. She just acts like she is in a funk. She says that she knows she can be happy with me and that i can make her happy, she just doesn't know how to go about moving past everthing anymore.
...etc. ALL of this is the withdrawal - depression, confusion, etc. She has a lot of mental work to do: take responsibility for her actions, face the various feelings of shame, guilt, anger, sadness, frustration, etc.
It is my opinion that you should NOT try to get her medicated in order to make these symptoms disappear [note - a 'professional' will almost automatically choose drugs - it makes for job security!]
Unless she actually takes the time and makes the effort to deal with them - they will be there, waiting, when the drugs wear off (and the addiction to them is dealt with). My guess is that there are issues within your marriage that have bothered her until she began to make weird decisions - and the solution is not to lock her up (either chemically or physically) but rather to face those problems together.
So give her some time - and a lot of love - and at the same time, set up those three non-negotiable conditions in order to protect both you and her in the upcoming difficult time of healing - and growing - your marriage.
Get her to agree to a legal separation, then she can't say you "abandoned" her. But you know that she will use the camera and phone thing against you-bet you that that is the FIRST thing she will say to that snake oil charlatan of a MC you are seeing.
I have been dealing with the same things you have been going through for a while now. We are on the whole rebuilding trust and me forgiving my wife deal now. On some of the replys someone mentioned asking your wife a question in the morning and then getting the answer that night. That is a great idea but I would do some investigating first and then ask her a question you already know the answer to. Try it a couple of times to see if she is being honest with you so that you don't waste your time asking her questions she is just going to lie to you about. Trust and communication is key to a good marriage. I give you props on how you have handled this ordeal so far besides the damaging of her property (I would of probably done the same thing though)...you have pretty much done everything you are suppose to do about how to handle the affair. Continue the marriage counseling to see why she would even go through with an affair because as I found out, problems are there before the affair that maybe we just are not aware of. Cause if those problems don't get fixed then it's possible she might do it again. Stay strong brother and I hope everything works out between you two.
Sorry it's been so long since I've updated. I will be at work in a few more days and will be able to respond quicker when I'm there.
I told my wife that I would replace the camera. I appologized to her for breaking it. I regret that I did that as she can take pictures of the kids with it and send them to me while I am at work.
Right now we (she) is up and down. At times, not so often, she is doing better, but the rest of the time she is back in her funk. She rarely talks to me about her day to day life. We are mostly talking about the kids and what they are doing.
I hardly ever talk about what happened, but when I talk about how I am feeling or what I would like to see, she puts up her wall on me and gets defensive. It is getting real aggravating trying to communicate with her. We are scheduled to go to the MC Tuesday evening. Hopefully she will open up there about everything because she sure isn't doing it here.
I had saved the emails that the keylogger had recorded to a thumb drive on New Years Eve. I told her last night that I was going to give it to her and she could do what she wanted with it. So today I gave it to her after I had deleted the emails and said that I am doine with what happened and plan to move forward either with her or without her, preferably with her. I guess we will see how things go from here.
Just one question for tonight, should my wife have to answer any question that I have about the affair or should there be some things left off limits? For example, specifics about what they were talking about in their emails.
Yes, my opinion is she needs to be forthcoming with every little thing. Hiding any thing from you is a sign that she still mybe in contact with OM. How can the both of you get past this if #1 she is still seeing OM, but deeper under ground, and #2 how can you heal if you still thinks she's seeing OM but deeper underground.
I for one would need to know what the two of them were writing to each other. I would want to know how she really felt about the OM.
But thats just me. You have to deside for your self on how much you really want to know.
Here is my situation. What do I do now? 
