chapparal

F-102 posted an excellent summary about how these re-connecting with old flame affairs usually go:


Quote:
Originally Posted by F-102
It may have gone something like this:

They first start catching up, and it's all "How you been doing? What have you been up to?"

Then it would have morphed into talk about:

What they've been doing since they parted
Their significant others since they parted
Their families
Their favorite music, movies, etc.
Their spouses
You
Your job
How your job keeps you away
How lonely she gets when you're away
How she looks forward to their conversations all the time now
How she loves talking to him
How she gets "bored" talking to you
How you don't always listen
How you're not "perfect"
How you can be so insensitive sometimes
How she wonders if she would have stayed with him
How he understands her
How he knows how to make her feel good
How you fail at this
How you are such an a**hole
How she feels young again
How she hasn't felt this happy with you in so long
How he's a better man than you'll ever be
How she wants to see him again
How they can meet under the radar
How she's thought of leaving you
How she ever could have fallen for a jerk like you
How he's her soul mate
How she made a big mistake leaving him
How she made an even bigger mistake marrying you
How they were meant to be together...

...get the picture?

Halien

Once a problem becomes that big elephant in the room, I can't help but wonder if it is right to keep nodding to the elephant and searching behind the scenes instead of just saying, "Hey, you do know there is an elephant in the room here?"



I'm only suggesting this because she would have to be a fool to think that you didn't notice the very obvious reaction. Now, she's coasting along with the assumtion that you are okay with the status quo ... or the elephant in the room. Either that, or she's frantically trying to escalate the affair for a way out from under the elephant.

Conrad

Paul,

I don't want to hijack FPM's thread, but how old are you and your wife?

What was her childhood like?

__________________
"Forgive or Re-Live"

-AFEH

Paulination

I'm 42 and she is 33. I met her when she was 19 and I was 28. Been married since just before 9/11. She was adopted at 18 days old and was born in Guadalajara. Her upbringing was all over the place. Her mom was the peaceful moderator type and her dad ruled with an iron fist. She witnessed alot of problems between her mom and dad and often begged her mom to leave him. Ironically they are going through a divorce now.

Some of our problems are derivatives of her childhood (IMO). I am no where close to her dad but she percieves me to be which makes her resentful.

Paulination

First, I don't want to suggest I am without fault in any of this. I know I am so where I can spy on her and see what bothers her and is legitimate I can address in a way that makes her believe I have figured some things out.

I know the spying is shady but ultimately the goal is to fix my marriage and to that end, it is worth it. My wife is a complicated woman. In a perfect world she would just express to me what is bothering her and we would address it. She doesn't and lets it build up and before I know it I am viewed as an a$$hole when I thought I was a saint.

Paulination

.

I'm on chapter 4 as we speak. I am also reading Divorce Busting. I must say, I have learned ALOT about relationships since my ordeal has begun.

THANK YOU so much to everyone here. This was the first place I found in the beginning and feel I have grown so much as a result of it. Even if my marriage fails I know I am ultimately more prepared for it then I ever would have been.

I'm feelin' the love!

Conrad

I was afraid you were going to tell me that.

I'm not surprised to hear her childhood home was filled with neglect and anger. What you describe of her behavior towards you (ie: the lack of commitment to doing anything different and the anger when not getting her way) screams of an emotionally broken person.

She's likely known what you've wanted for years, but has been secretly angry with you because she's simply terrified to actually commit/submit to a man. She likely distrusts all men and holds them in contempt. You see, people who should not have hurt her DID hurt her a long time ago. You are likely the stand-in for her anger towards them.

Marriage counseling is not what she needs.

Individual counseling IS what she needs - with a focus on her interactions with you - and how she can get past her own anger and the resulting dismissal of your needs in your relationship.

Keep in mind that some people actually attend therapy simply to nurse their own internal anger. Of course, this gets nowhere. Then they end up repeating the same old mistakes for the rest of their lives. They are miserable and they blame everyone but themselves.

The people that hurt her aren't here.

Now, she's paying it forward.

It can stop here. But, she's going to need to fix herself. She's the only one that can.

You can do your part. His Needs/Her Needs and books like that are a good place to start. But, she likely needs to do some heavy lifting on her own.

__________________
"Forgive or Re-Live"

-AFEH

MSP

I PM'ed you a couple days or so ago. Did you get it?

Paulination

Well I am happy to report my wife wasn't talking sh!t about us with her friend tonight. Even better is that the friend was on FB as well (she commented on a couple of things on her wall) so they could have easily IM each other.

chapparal

Keylogger?

KJ5000

There's dirty work afoot. A spouse's instincts are usually correct! Watch your back son and do not be afraid to confront her. Sneaks rely on that and use that it a means to continue questionable behavior and actions.

Paulination

Indeed. My wife and I have been having problems and she can't articulate to me what her issue is (or mine). She doesn't want divorce but doesn't feel the same way about me and that something is missing. My first thought was EA (PA is impossible as all of her time is accounted for. I needed to know, she's being cryptic. Turns out no EA, PA just a wife who is running her mouth about our problems and making me out to be jerk of the earth.


Anyway, I need you guys to help me. I have my wifes FB password and I need to know the risks of being caught snooping. She is at her soccer game now which would be perfect timing but just before I logged in a thought came across so I stopped.

What if a friend, especially the friend she's been running her mouth to sees my wife logged on and tries to IM her. I certainly couldn't respond. What is the friend says later "why didn't you answer my IM earlier?" and the wife puts together the fact that she was logged in at a time she couldn't have been. Could this scenario indeed occur?

So ideally the best time to snoop is when the wife is on FB. Can she tell that I am snooping from my end as long as I don't change anything? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. This is way too important for me to screw it up because I am too eager.

Thanks in advance.

Thor

No, don't log on when she is too. If you do something it might be mirrored to her screen.

There may be no way to change a FB email message to unread. In normal email you can do that, read an email and then mark it as unread. Also, in FB when you read emails it changes the icon on the top of the main page. When there is an unread message the notification is highlighted. When you go to messages it turns off the notification.

So you have to be careful with FB snooping. The safest is to log on and see if there are notifications. If not, click on the message icon and read messages that she has not erased. If she has notifications, I would not go to messages.

A keylogger should be catching any outgoing messages. A screenshot saver will capture messages she receives, reads, and then deletes. If your keylogger program will do screenshots it would be the safest way to gather intel.

Since you don't believe there is any EA/PA, perhaps you should cool it with the spy tech. If you get caught it will probably be a huge issue with her. The upside isn't the normal one with gathering hard evidence of an EA/PA.

If it were me I would approach her in a general way to see if she'll talk and try to get her to go to marriage therapy. In any case you can't use any intel you've gathered from her chats, so it doesn't do you any specific good other than knowing she is unhappy in the relationship.

Paulination

Thank you Thor. I will not snoop around her FB page directly unless the situation becomes so dire that being caught is secondary to information gathered. An EA or PA is really the only thing that would elevate it to that level.

I do have a program that takes sceanshots and that is how I know what I know already but she does alot of communication through her cell phone and I don't get all of that. I missed a huge segment that I feel would have beneficial when she went from her computer to her cell phone. The only way for me to see it is through direct access to her page, that is why I am so curious.

MSP

Actually, you can mark FB messages as unread, but you will still lose the homescreen notification once it's read.

The main problem is that if she has chat set to automatically login, then everyone will see her available for chat, if they happen to look. You can turn her to invisible and hope no one sees this before you do, but you'll have to reset it before you log out, too.

Facebook chats are not automatically saved, so she could be chatting and you'll never know it without a keylogger program of some sort. You can install a plugin in the browser (Firefox or Chrome) that will save all chat history, but it's not secret. If she looks through her browser preferences she may see it.