# how do you know when the through the towel in?



## longroadahead (Jul 21, 2011)

I'm new at this and just want to tell things as they appear. In no way do I intend to put my wife down and think of her as a liar. So here's my story.

I'm a 30 yr old married man of 5 years and have known my wife for a total of 8 yrs. In February my wife came home from a work trip and decided that she thought our relationship was just platonic and she needed time to figure out if we are meant to be together. This came as a complete shock to me, since we never argue or fight (unless it's where to go to dinner for the night or her backseat driving). Well, I went through all the motions of crying, was there something I did or said, can I be more helpful, etc. This whole time has been very quiet and lonely for me, as to give her her space.

Then in June I finally decided that I think falling out of love was not the real issue. So I went to sprint and got a copy of our phone records. She has been calling one particular person from work constantly that coincidently started in February. Her excuses seem to be his mom is dying, his wife lives 5 hours away and they own a house there and currently looking to sell, he's lonely for friendships, and she's trying to help him find a job. I just don't know if I'm buying this since they talk for 1 to 2 hours every Saturday or so. Also, the text messages in February were up to 250 and this past June are now 3,300. She works with this guy and he's married and yet I still can't place my finger on why she never told me about him as I had to find out about this friendship. Also, how is he escaping his wife if he's supposedly with her every weekend? Now that I do know about him, she still fails to bring him up in conversation. Right now I can't think there is something going on, but the quietness at home and the lack of romance is really hurting. 

She is now asking for a trial separation in the next few weeks. Her rules are that she signs a 6 month lease and we see each other once a week. She will pay this on her own and still pay half our mortgage on the house too. I just don't know whether to give in. I would like to say I tried everything, but from everything I've read online this is a quick way to divorce. Some days I'm ready to say if you leave this house don't come back, but then the next day we talk a lot more and I think I need to give it more time. It seems we are turning into two people that don't want to file, but nothing is getting better either. The question is when is the right time to move on?


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## Jellybeans (Mar 8, 2011)

Can you call the guy's wife? It sounds like your wife is having an affair with him. 

(Call the wife w/o telling hte man or your wife first so they don't have time to get their stories straight).


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## livinnitemare (Jul 21, 2011)

longroadahead, 

I feel your pain... I'm going thru something similar. Also, found texts from H to another co-worker (who is married too). If there's that much texting, it can't be all regular texting is my opinion. It either has already crossed the lines, or is getting ready to. For me, I tried and tried every single thing that I could possibly could think off to save my marriage to let my H know to come home to his family. That we could go to marriage counseling, but he did not want to. He also got his own apt. Except mine is not willing to help with $$$. 
From what you say it sounds as she has the power and is calling the shots.. basically it's under "her terms" of how she wants it. 

I can tell you that once you let them have that upper hand power they will just keep cutting deeper and deeper into your heart. So, you better let her know that you will have your own terms for the separation. You have to ask yourself what if you do what she is suggesting but don't get the results you're wanting? Basically she wants her cake and eat it too. See you once a week, but still live single and have a single life, not knowing who is coming over to her apt. or staying over. Hard to hear I know. 

In my opinion a trial separation is all good IF both parties are willing to go to marriage counseling during that time. If your wife does not agree to that and just wants to see you once a week. Then it doesn't really sound like she's wanting to work on the marriage. She just wants to live "single" but have you waiting in the background. 

I wish you luck.


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## longroadahead (Jul 21, 2011)

jellybeans,

I wish I knew the phone number. Trust me I've had that thought in my head for awhile. What bugs her is that she doesn't have any reason for feeling/acting this way. Her reasoning changes time and again. She's tried playing it off too that she's unhappy in the suburbs and wants to move to the city. I said fine, but we move together and hang out together. She said no because she needs to figure this out and likes having her own group of friends. By the way, it's been 6 months of this and I still haven't met this guy that she's been talking to so much. 

livinnitemare,

Thanks for the post. I told my wife last weekend I see three options (to disguse an ultimatum) 1) we live in this house and act like a married couple, 2) we sell our place and move to the city to act like a married couple, and 3) we don't separate and we go our own divorced ways. She didn't even think about it and said well the only one I like is option 3 are you ready to make that call. I couldn't believe how quick she came back to me on this. It just felt like if you're already checked out, why are you torturing me still. So I left it alone and we didn't come to a real solution. I asked about going back to councelling and she said no because our last one thought she was depressed, which she didn't like at all. I think she's moving in mid August. Should I atleast try to make it work or just let her go? She agreed that no dating will take place and she just wants some time to think what is best for her and what's best for me.


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## brighterlight (Aug 13, 2009)

LRA, best advice from livinnit is "don't her get the upper hand....and...make the calls on the sep.."

I think it is great that you know what she is up to and she doesn't know that you know. But, what are you waiting for? She won't fess up to it.

I think JB's advice to call his wife is a good one but it could backfire on you too. That call to his wife might be enough to get her to ask him for a sep or divorce which would then free him up to mess around more with your W. Or it could work out for you. There is somewhat of a risk there. Anyway, I was thinking something along the lines of trying to put her on the spot. Something like maybe talk to her sweetly like:

You: Honey, don't you agree with me that trust is the foundation of a good and loving marriage. I think it is at the core of a lasting marriage. No trust, marriage dies. Don't you think?
Her: Yip.
You: No, No, I mean really. I think that if you or I ever cheated on each other, it would be so heartless. It's kind of like taking the vows we swore to each other in front of God and family and just throwing them in the garbage as if they really never meant anything. Man, I respect you and care about you so much that I would never lower myself to doing that to you nor our family; I couldn't live with myself. I would rather ask you for a divorce than do something that low and slimy. I mean to me, it's so dishonorable to take someone's trust and use it to your advantage. I mean, right, wouldn't you agree?
Her: Well, umm, yeah, I completely agree.
You: I know, me too, it would be so disrespectful to you and to our family. Wow, I can't imagine how it would feel to be betrayed that way. I not sayin' ya know, just sayin'!

See what happens next. I think she will be even more pissed at you. But at least you side slapped her and she won't even know it.

Save the big reveal for a better time.

I know, it sounds ridiculous but I would be LMAO if she seemed mad after that discussion. What? All you did was to let her know how dedicated you are to her. What?

That is of course if you can keep your composure through all of it.

I would be so ticked off if she just said yes and lied to your face through that whole conversation. Cause I gotta tell ya, that many texts, phone records of 1 or 2 hour converstions and wanting to move out for 6 months = total cheat!

No wonder she is being so nicey nicey about $$$.

Man up - you call the shots.
So


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## brighterlight (Aug 13, 2009)

OK, our posts crossed. Forget everthing I said in my last post! Ask for divorce but make her file and say to everyone that asks that she is the one who asked for it. She wants you to be the evil one and ask to end the marriage while she tries to look innocent which is why she is denying the affair.

You need to find some proof (keep the phone records) that she is cheating on you so you have a slight upper hand if divorce court, child custody, etc. in your future.

The last thing you want is to look like the evil doer all the way around. Some spy work should not be difficult if she is leaving on weekends. Also, she will be seen with the OM once she moves out.

I really think that if you give her option 3 and you do all the legal filing - you are making it WAY too easy for her.

Tell her no, that you want option 4. Well, what is option 4 she asks! That is where I stay here, you move to your own place like you wanted and we do not file separation nor divorce so you can go and F***ck this other dude while you are still legally married in an adultress affair.

Well, what on earth are you talking about? This - and whip out the phone records.

I mean, she has already bailed on you, just don't let her make you the person who filed so you can be held accountable for the collapse of your marriage.

Sorry man, I get so ticked off when people cheat on their loved ones.

I am just putting in my .02 cents worth. Whatever you do, do not let it look like you quit your marriage because you didn't - she did!


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## longroadahead (Jul 21, 2011)

Thanks everyone. I'm just still so confused. The thing I'm struggling with is, if she is indeed not cheating than why is she not getting help or wanting to do marriage counceling. At times she still talks and tries and wants to spend most weekends together. 

I read a great book called "love must be tough" by James Dobson. I never read Christian lit. and I'll admit it was pretty good. Most of these cases though were known affairs and the people kept letting it happen. Trust me if I had proof I would end it tomorrow. The only thing I'm struggling with is I don't know if it is indeed an affair and it's tough to put my foot down with someone that I still love and want things to work out. 

So the question remains do you allow a separation, but blindly not tell them you have one month to figure out if this is worth repairing or not? Right now I'm leaning toward at least trying, because as I said before she's done if I don't allow the separation. 

By the way, I did confront her about the phone records and those were her excuses I mentioned before. She's still not talking about their friendship, which bothers me still. Should I have some friends follow her and see what she's up to or should I just leave it alone until they slip up, if there is something going on? To my knowledge he hasn't filed for divorce from his wife yet and he's looking for jobs that will be 20 hours away from his wife and house (they own). So he could potentionly be away from us and never see my wife again!


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## brighterlight (Aug 13, 2009)

longroadahead said:


> Thanks everyone. I'm just still so confused. The thing I'm struggling with is, if she is indeed not cheating than why is she not getting help or wanting to do marriage counceling. At times she still talks and tries and wants to spend most weekends together.
> 
> I read a great book called "love must be tough" by James Dobson. I never read Christian lit. and I'll admit it was pretty good. Most of these cases though were known affairs and the people kept letting it happen. Trust me if I had proof I would end it tomorrow. The only thing I'm struggling with is I don't know if it is indeed an affair and it's tough to put my foot down with someone that I still love and want things to work out.
> 
> ...


Sorry man, It still smells to me like she is cheating; either emotionally or physically, it doesn't matter, it is still cheating. If your W is living in her own place, does it really matter where he moves to? It's just a plane flight or long drive, which she can do whenever she feels like it because she is on her own.

I don't know what to tell you. You say you showed her the phone records and she is still denying it. How the h**ll does she explain 1 or 2 hour conversations with him? Sorry man, I call Bullsh**t!


Also, if she was so quick to respond to your 3 options with the divorce option, obviously she has been thinking about it for a while. She wants to be free to do what she wants. You say she won't go to counseling with you, did she say why? It sure sounds to me like she is done with the marriage.

It's the quick decision she made on the divorce option that would really bother me. It's one thing (although not right and your personal preference) for her to want to have an affair with someone else as some fantasy or desire to fill a curiousity (I don't agree with this but it is common) but still love you and want to stay with you. But, to add the option for divorce to that, in my book, puts the marriage at whole different bad level. That is just a signal that she wants out and no longer wants to be with you.

I would try to get which one of those two it is out of her. If it is divorce, I am sorry to say, don't waste your valuable time waiting around. Just my thought on this.


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## morituri (Apr 1, 2011)

*If she truly is done with the marriage, she would have already filed for divorce and you would have been served. A true walk away wife files for divorce, a true cake eating wife file for legal separation. Which of the two describes your wife? *

The fact that she wants a separation is not to assess whether or not the marriage is viable but to act like a single woman who can the have a relationship with another man. Yet still have the insurance policy of returning to you if things don't work out with her lover. Nice isn't it? 

Remember that once she is separated from you, the only way you MAY be able to get any concrete proof that she is cheating on you is by hiring a PI and they are expensive. Got the money to hire one?

Right now she KNOWS that you are scared of losing her so she has no fear of telling you that she prefers the divorce option. So go ahead and give her what she wants, her freedom via divorce. But don't be surprised that once you do, that she starts backing away from the idea of separation and moving out. 

Of course the choice is yours as to how you want to proceed, allow her the freedom to have the best of both worlds via a separation that is probably a prelude to divorce a few years from now or divorce her to end it now and let her taste reality. She may find the taste of it bittersweet.


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## blownaway (Dec 11, 2010)

Ugh! She sounds exactly like my stbxh. He actually followed the same pattern. There were rumors of an affair, but he continued and continued to tell me that there was no one else. Coincidentally, at the time that the rumors came out, he also told me that he no longer wanted to be married. He couldn't really come up with a reason that made sense, but I wanted so badly to fix this and put our 15 year relationship back together, that I believed him. I allowed him to throw me those few crumbs that resembled hope because I was scared to death and desperate for my old, safe life to just reappear.

After the initial "love you but not in love with you" conversation, he continued to flip flop. He wanted to end it, but at the same time, he would try MC. He wanted to move out, but he said he didn't want the permanancy of divorce. I finally had to tell him he had to go. He would come home and look through me rather than at me. This was the biggest, most important thing in our lives, and he actually had the nerve to say that he didn't want to talk about anything. The nights he did come home, he would just ignore me until it was time to go to bed. During those months, I nicknamed my house "House of Hell." 

Once he left, he still wouldn't admit to the affair. In fact, we agreed that we would engage in a "trial separation". The one major rule was no dating other people. Also, we had agreed that if he had some doubt, we would go to MC, not with the primary goal of getting back together, but to try to figure out what happened, where things went wrong and help him explore his doubt of making this a permanent change.

About a week before we were to have our first post-separation appointment, I found out the truth. He had been having an affair with a co-worker and a good friend spotted him out with her. It was the same person that everyone had suspected and the same person that he continued to tell me was not anything other than his secretary. He lied to my face continually during those awful "transitional" weeks and months. He did this knowing that the whole situation was killing me. It made no difference how much I cried, begged, kicked, screamed, talked, professed my love - nothing was going to make him realize it. He villified me to make himself feel better and it took me a long time to figure out that he was able to do this because he was already gone. 

I only tell you this because your situation appears to be the same as mine. Your wife dropped her bomb for no apparent reason, at least not a reason that you could see. I don't care what she tells you or what ridiculous reason she comes up with - it is another man. She is a liar. 

She is the same as my sbtxh. She wants to leave so that she can have her affair without having to sneak around. At the same time, she's afraid of the monumental change that will come once you know so she is throwing you these morsals of hope, i.e., we get to date once a week. She is not tough enough right now to end it completely with you because she has no idea if she's jumping from the frying pain into the fire and she needs to protect herself. She wants you to stand there with a net in the event that she needs to jump back. Mine actually said that he knew we would always be great friends and that if it didn't work with us, we could "always get remarried." They are delusional.

I know how much this hurts you and I hate that another person in the world has to go through this. While I think that ending marriages, particularly when children are involved like in my case, without giving it your 100% all, is horrible in and of itself, I have ZERO respect for the people who truly have no idea how to end it with an ounce of respect for the other person. This "cake eating" is the most disrespectful and cruel thing a person could do. I wouldn't treat a stranger on the street like this, yet my own spouse was able to do it. 

Please see that it's all about her right now. Her behavior is horrible because she is selfish and self-absorbed. 

Please believe that it's not about you at all. This is all about her. She has something inside of her that is broken and her ability to cheat and lie and give you hope when she knows full well that it's killing you - is just evidence of her flaws. HER flaws.

So, you ask when is it that you know to throw in the towel - it's now. Go see an attorney to find out what you'll be facing in terms of property settlement and future finances and get your ducks in a row. If she wants out, let her out. She may come back, she may not. That is not your concern at this point. If she comes back, then you get to decide whether you want her and whether you want to invest one more second in a person who could discard you in this way. But again, that is all speculation.

My stbxh has been out of the house for 10 months now and we will likely be divorced by the fall. I hate it. I hate that this has happened and that my children will have to adjust to their father just up and leaving them. At the same time though, I am going through the pain to get to the other side. There is a lot of pain from this, but there also is peace. I don't have to worry anymore about what he's doing or who he's with. I cry a lot still and it's a slow process, but I don't have that punched in the gut kind of pain anymore.

I'm sorry this is so long and drawn out, but I hope it helps you to understand what she's doing and how it's going to continue to impact you if you let her call the shots. It will do nothing but chip away at your sanity and your soul. Take back your control - it's the only thing you have right now.


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## sprinter (Jul 25, 2011)

Turn on GPS for the phone. When you think she's with him, go there. See how they behave together. That's what you need to do. Also, it's actually good to have her leave. The one that leaves the marriage will have less of a legal hold. They walked away from a home, a lifestyle, etc. The fact that you don't want the divorce can help you some. It will be hard for her to go after support or any type of monetary demand. Ask her to go to counseling. Do everything on your part to try to keep it together. I think in the end this will play well for you if this goes to court. Who knows.


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## mcline6 (Jul 23, 2011)

She is having an affair (emotional or otherwise). Get out now. And work on your own life. Don't spend the energy trying to prove it or trying to work on it. She is the one that has the problem. (Yes, we all can do better on many different things but right now - she is the one with the problem that is keeping you from staying together).

I have all sorts of evidence about my stbx (mostly circumstantial but enough for me to know that it was more than 'friends.') But at some point, I just realized that I was draining myself emotionally and I just had to move on. Even when you confront someone with all sorts of evidence, they will still deny it (as did my sbtx). I now carry on a business type relationship with my stbx so that we can come to terms on the divorce and make sure everything is good for my daughter. At some point, after you have worked on your own life, you will feel much better and be at a point when you can show how much better your are and she will likely not be in that same position (I just so my sbtx and she didn't look too good and confessed that she was struggling).


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## longroadahead (Jul 21, 2011)

Thanks for the replies everyone. Looking back I think I might have sensationalized the phone calls with this one coworker a little bit. Mostly 20-30 minutes each, but a one or two 1-2 hour calls in the 6 months this has been going on. Either way you get the point that she's talking to him more than her own mother. The tough thing right now is getting home from work and she's texting like crazy. I think I'm in the right if I ask who she is texting, but she just blows up and tells me I'm such a hypocrate about texting. I think she just does this to avoid telling me who it is and what they're talking about. I truely want to believe that she is chatting with friends, but it's tough. I've been leaving the room lately because my heart is just racing from not knowing what is going on with her chatter.

Right now not much has changed. We are talking more about our everyday activities and she is coming to the realization that she can't afford to move out (which I can't tell if she's still looking for 6 mo subleases). We are hanging out most weekends together, which is great too. The tough thing is I'm getting tired of being her "friend" and would like to be her husband again. I just don't know if the romance is ever going to come back. 

This weekend I'll get the month of July phone records. I believe she has stopped calling him (for the most part), but I'm sure the amount of texting is increasing. The thing I'd like to do is see who and when she is texting this guy, which I can find from sprint workers but I can't have a print out. Every morning I wake up or go to bed, I hit cancel on the enter password on her phone and she's got another text waiting for her. I'm just going batty not knowing who these are from and she's not willing to tell. 

So still in a standstill of what to do. She refuses counceling because they look at her like she's depressed and why she isn't really talking. I also don't feel like paying 800 bucks for a PI to find out if she is sleeping around on me with another married man. I just don't know how much more evidence I need before I trust that she does need more time.


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