Almostrecovered

Post coitus I did the last dumb thing in regards to uncovering her affair. (well really dumb that is) -I apologized for snooping and promised I would stop and trust her

not only did I apologize, I actually pulled out the VAR that I purchased earlier that day from Staples and said I was ashamed I was going to use it.

I was truly in a state of denial and she worked it to her advantage.

I went off to bed, she said she would be up in a few minutes as she had to finish something up for school. (I learned two days later she was having a facebook chat with him about how they just dodged a bullet.)

Fortunately for me my mistake wouldn't matter for long.

The next day at work in the morning I just got off the phone with the wife as she said she had to get to her physical therapy appointment. So, after hanging up I went to log onto facebook to see what stupid new gifts there were in Mafia Wars. I had forgotten that I still was logged in as my wife (since i had been checking out OM the day before).

And there it was

Back then, facebook had a glitch.
and what it wonderful glitch it was for me!!

You could log into the same account from another computer at the same time. And if one user was having a chat- you could witness it live.

There it was- the two of them chatting and it was obvious she was chatting while she was talking with me-

Her-Okay, I'm off the phone now

Him- What time are you back from your PT appt?

Her- 10am, I only have 2 more appointments but I'll tell Almostrecovered that I have 6 more left so we can keep up the charade

Him-

Her: With AR getting edgy I think we should just watch a movie or something since he still could be hiding that recorder.

Him: Yeah, my wife seems to be on edge as well, could just be pregnancy nerves.

Her- gotta go

him: okay on movie, maybe just a quickie instead
him: bye

at that point the chat went blank as she must've deleted the record.


I lost it
I was back to reacting again
but this time I had the smoking gun

I called home- no answer
I called her cell- she answered almost angrily-

Her- "What?! Why are you calling the home line, I told you I am on my way to PT?! I'm trying to get out the door, I am late!"

me- "Wow, you are something! You sat there and looked me straight in the eye and lied! So you only have 2 more appointments, eh?"

There was some silence and when she answered her tone turned snide as if she was proud

her- "yeah well"

What I said next I can't recall, but I started on a tirade until I heard the phone click.

I thought to myself, "That f***ing ***** just hung up on me!"

After 2 failed attempts at reaching her (I thought she turned her phone off as voice mail picked up on one ring) I immediately went to the number I had written down and called the OM.

Rob774

Okay at this point... what has she admitted to???

An EA, or does she describe whats gone on just as a big misunderstanding by you???

Because to me, while she might not be having a full blown affair (EA or PA), what she has done is raise some HUGE Red Flags. NO man comes into my house when i'm not there that i don't know about. Its as simple as that, because i'm going to assume the worst happened...

Especially when you are texting this person all the time. Especially when you all of a sudden are into losing weight, especially if you are into new tricky stuff in the bedroom.There are usually are you tell-tale signs of a PA. I'm not saying she is definately having one, but to me, its more on her to prove she isn't than me to prove she is. I know you want this to work out, but don't let your guard down. Don't let all this great s3x overwhelm you, because even this... is a sign of something going on.

Almostrecovered

uhhhh...this is a recap of what happened 2 years ago

she did have a PA

southern wife

If I get any closer to the edge of my seat, I'm going to be on the floor! You're doing a great job and I love how you remembered things in such detail.

Unsure in Seattle

Frankly, I'm stunned that there will be something close to a happy ending to this saga.

You're a strong cat, AR. Best to you.

Almostrecovered

After the OM answered the phone, I didn't take the time to introduce myself. I felt that my demand would be more than sufficient to let him know who I was.


"You have 24 hours to tell your wife"

(cue the Jack Bauer clock)

Him- "Dude, you're overreacting- we're just friends!"

Me- "Hard to overreact to a quickie, eh?"

Him- "C,mon, that was just a joke!"

Me- "I'm done talking with you, I have more evidence than that- you have 24 hours."

and I hung up

It was the one and only time I ever spoke to the man. To this day I've never met him physically, I'm not sure what I would do if I did.


After hanging up I went to into my brother's office and told him the short version of what had happened and told him I'm not sure what I'm going to do but to keep it quiet for now. This time when I left work I wasn't rushing out of there.

In fact, this time on my drive home, I started to feel a calmness wash over me. Sure, I was jittery to an extent but I started to think clearer. I knew what had to be done. The path ahead of me was certain and there's something to be said for certainty, even if it's not a good thing. This time I knew I would NOT be my mother, I would NOT allow my wife to walk all over me anymore like my father had done to my mother 20 years prior.

I knew in my mind what needed to be done and the only road that lay before me- I was going to get a divorce.

southern wife

Almostrecovered

On the way home I stopped at the physical therapy clinic to verify that she did indeed go there. I saw her car in the parking lot. There was maybe 10 minutes left in her session so I knew if she didn't arrive home in 15-20 minutes then I knew where she would have gone. Had she chose to do that, I would have hit the buzzer on OM's timer and called the OMW at her work, which I had the info for after my diligent research gathering from the day prior.

Instead, I got home, greeted the dogs and went to the computer desk and sat in the swivel chair. I started to google info on my state's divorce laws. 5 minutes passed and she walked in the door.

As she came in I turned in my swivel chair to meet her, if only I had a cat in my lap to stroke. (I even had just shaved my head recently)


Before I even had the chance to say anything, she immediately started prattling on about how her phone battery died and she did not hang up on me. She even showed that the phone was dead and hooked it up to the charger as she spoke. It might have been the first ounce of truth I had received from her in 17 days.

Me-"That doesn't matter, we should calmly discuss how we are going to proceed with a divorce. I am willing to have an amicable split to spare the children more grief than they will already experience from all of this."

Tears welled up in her eyes as she initially tried to shift blame. "I know having an affair was wrong BUT..." and she yelled that I was inattentive for years and how she tried to make things works, blah blah blah...."AND YOU PROMISED YOU'D STOP SNOOPING!"

My face made a wrinkled incredulous look as I said in a sarcastic tone, "Do you really want to go there?"

Her body slumped, and then she grabbed my cigarettes off of the table and walked to the back door as she muttered, "Yeah, you're right"

I sat in the chair stewing for what seemed like 10 minutes (it was maybe 2?) and went outside to get my own smoke. I wasn't going to let her take control of this conversation.

She was sitting on the back porch steps that led to the patio, her head was buried in her hands as one hand held her cigarette. The cigarette had a long cylinder of ash barely hanging on that indicated that she wasn't even paying attention to it. She was sobbing uncontrollably like I had just done two days prior. She heard me light up my own smoke and cried, "I dont want a divorce!"

"I'll do anything!"

it-guy

This is great. Inspired to tell my own story from start to finish one day. Good idea to wait a couple of years to do so. Heck I'm not even sure yet if my story is really over. I'm sure the affair is, but the aftermath takes a while to sort out..... I want a happy ending to my story

Almostrecovered

"I'll do anything"

If anything was going to surprise me it was these three words

I was expecting a fight, more denials, or more blaming.

Not that I believed her when she said it at first, But this clearly wasn't my father talking. This was another person. My father never said such things and was difficult through the whole affair mess. I was confused and taken aback.

Me- "I honestly don't know if I can ever forgive you and continue in this marriage, but if you're serious and you really mean 'anything' then let's start with the truth."

Over the course of probably 8 chained smoked cigarettes she told me of the affair. That it started when she went to his house and was surprised that no one else ended up coming over but her. (bastard planned it that way and had his buddies say they were coming over but not go) They were having fun and he leaned into kiss her and she didn't stop him and they had oral sex.

At this point I warned her that she's not Bill Clinton and BJ's do count. I also reminded her of the fact of how very good I am at finding things out and if she is just saying that she had oral sex to soften the blow when in fact she did more then she'd better pony up now.

She continued and said that they met at our house from that point on maybe 6 times over the course of the 17 day affair. She said he never brought condoms so they never had intercourse, although she admitted she would have. The sex had always taken place on the living room couch and the bed was never used. (that couch has since been donated to charity)

The thing that struck me as odd was how she described the affair as "just sex". It was almost as if it was a man talking. She even brought up the fact how I joked that the fact that she never had been intimate with anyone other than me that she would have an affair sometime. (see page 1, talk about having ESP!) She also said that "her plan" was to stop when his baby was born. Today I've gotten her to admit now that if it continued without me uncovering it that "her plan" surely wouldn't have seen its end and she would have still continued to cheat and she would have developed more of an emotional attachment.

After the truth finally came out (and more details eventually emerged later but nothing was proven to be wrong from her initial statement), I said, "You're going to call OM right now, you're going to put him on speaker phone, you're going to tell him that he is never to talk to you again and that I will tell his wife if he doesn't."

She did it without blinking. Hearing the fear in his voice was nice to say the least. He even asked if I was there as I'm guessing he wanted to say something else if I wasn't.

After the call, I told my wife that IF she expects me to consider reconciliation that she has to allow me to snoop to my heart's content and she can't say a word about it. I told her that her privacy is now null and void. And that she needed to always tell where she is going what she is doing, etc etc.

She needed to get to sleep as she had a shift that night, she swallowed some pills and went off to bed. I sat there with a buzz in my brain wondering if I could do this. The thing that worried me the most was that OM worked at the same place and I had no way of verifying if they were to have any contact. I didn't know whether to demand that she quit prematurely (she would graduate in 3 months) and suffer financial problems or just bite the bullet.


Looking back and knowing what I know now, I really do have to pat myself on the back a bit here. Once I finally got the nerve to do what I needed to do, I did indeed do a lot of things right. I had no self-help books, I wasn't reading message boards at the time, yet in the span of 1 hour I managed to do the following intuitively:

1) Confront with the threat of divorce and not having it be an empty threat. While this wasn't intended, it was the crucial difference between me and my mom, my mother begged and pleaded and got shat on again and again. I was able break her out of the fog by showing that her that her actions had very real consequences.
2) Got a no contact agreement. While I didn't do a letter or anything like that I made it very clear that they were'nt to be friends or even talk to one another again and if she did then I would leave. (more on this later regarding her work and the one attempt she made)
3) Got complete transparency. I also made sure she wasn't going to try to make me feel bad for verifying.
4) Had her answer any question I asked and had her answer them repeatedly. To me this showed me that she had true remorse. It took a while obviously (more later), but by doing this I was able to not rug sweep.

Which isn't to say I didn't make mistakes either....


next..Part 6 The road to reconciliation

Almostrecovered

I have learned that there are things that we can't control. It's how we control ourselves in these situations that give us a happy ending or not. In all honesty, my wife could not have been a willing partner in R. Had that been the case I'm positive I still would have had a happy ending, I just would have done things differently.

southern wife

Now I'm on the floor; I fell off my seat!

useable

not a good stories, the ending is cliche. work on the marriage when cs remorseful and want to work on things.

you do not have brave to left the cheating spouse.. awful

it-guy

useable, are you reading the same threads that you post on?

Almostrecovered

for starters I haven't come close to finishing this and you have no idea where this went.

secondly, this is what happened, it's not like I can go back and fix anything. I admit to lots of mistakes on the way but ultimately I was able to come out of this a happier man. I also realize that I was fortunate enough to have someone who was actually willing to work on the marriage and do the right things. Had she not, I would be divorced right now.

thirdly, I am not a fan of your posts in other threads for the most part. You are a very judgmental person and tend to project your own strong feelings onto others. I fully realize that some people can't get over infidelity, I also fully realize that some people let themselves get walked all over by infidelity and choose to bury their heads in the sand or rug sweep. However, what you fail to realize is that some people are capable of recovering from infidelity with certain factors involved.