OK I think this is worth noting. I just got off the phone with a divorce lawyer to discuss possible outcomes and she brought up several interesting points relating to the legality of looking at communications. At this point recording without knowledge and consent of at least one of the parties would be a crime. I believe I am safely on the right side of the law since I have only used our shared devices, logs, passwords etc but as a warning to people looking to do more make sure you know the legal ramifications should it come to blows. IMHO, and I am not a lawyer so this cannot be construed as legal advice, things like voice activated recorders, or even installing software on the phone can be crossing into illegal activities. I understand the desire to know the truth, especially when needing that undeniable evidence to confront somebody but I am not going to go near anything that might be later used to send me to jail. There are things worse than divorce and federal pound-me-in-the-ass penitentiary strikes me as one.
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BlackwulfLeading the pack. Silver MemberPosts: 1,782
If you are 100% confident she is having an affair, what do you want? What at this point makes her a good partner after this many affairs? Sure you have your issues, but the boundaries of the marriage are shot and it isn't the first time.
The religious side of things isn't worth shaming her, it would actually hurt you and your kids more than her. If that mattered she wouldn't be having affairs with men and women. She has poor boundaries and doesn't see what you offer to the marriage as value enough to stay in or thinks she can get away with it.
If you want out, now is the time to allow her to get out without it getting vindictive and/or greedy. From a business decision it stands to reason to "sell" now.
You are emotionally hurt right now but your best interest is to face the truth of your situation. You are married to a serial cheater, and your best bet is to get her out of your life as much as you can and protect your self and your children. If she immediately comes clean and starts showing remorse then you might be able to salvage the releationship, but the odds are on the side of recidivism if you don't change yourself too.
I really don't know what you would lose from just confronting her with the facts: 1) You have cheated before 2) You treat me with disrespect and not like a husband and lover 3) You have excessive communication with someone else and it is an inappropriate relationship. She spends her energy outside the marriage. 4) You don't want to hear anymore lies
You should immediately require all communication devices from her. If she says no, just say you are going to an attorney on Monday. You are the goose that lays the golden eggs, she might be able to get out some alimony and assets, but you are your business and could rebuild much faster once you have this emotional turmoil out of your life. At this point still it is better to bust things now before your business gets serious traction.
I honestly think you want to just blow it up. I don't see any real reason to do it in front of the church or her parents, that is just revenge fantasy (I understand it, trust me). I would cancel her parents trip.
If she comes clean you are going to have to both get counseling. You blow up the affair by informing the other man's wife and giving both a no contact letter. I would determine if there is anyone else who knows about this and cut them out of your lives too because they are aiding and abetting.
Then you are going to have to MAP in your weak areas. You have the financial side down and the pure physical but you are missing a key piece on mindset and enforcing boundaries.
My experience "blowing up" an affair is quite different than most others given that I found out about my wife's affair about seven years after it ended and only when she accepted a friend request on facebook from the other man did the shit hit the fan. If you're interested, I have a thread in 'Success Stories' that provides much detail.
That being said, I'm relatively certain that if I caught my wife having an affair at the time of the affair, I would divorce. That's who I am. Others have not divorced and have had marital success. There are a lot of variables that influence this decision.
So, in the prior 2 episodes of affairs, how was it finalized? Was there an ultimatum - 'any more violations and I'm out of here' kinda thing? How was it concluded?
And yeah, before deploying any eavesdropping methods you better know your jurisdictions laws. Before you wind up comitting a crime.
"Fall down seven times, stand up eight" Japanese Proverb
Based on circumstantial evidence, your wife's past behavior, and your wife's current behavior you believe she is having an affair. I agree with you on this. You don't have a smoking gun but hard evidence, depending on what outcome your going for, may not be necessary.
What's your main objective here?
If a third affair is a deal breaker for you then I like @Blackwulf s advice. Forget searching for conclusive evidence just contact a lawyer and begin moving on with your life.
If you're hoping for reconciliation and attempting to repair the marriage then hire a private investigator immediately, keep monitoring comms, and stick with your poker face.
@Angeline, please don't think I have forgotten about your points, I have been trying to get my mind wrapped around all the immediate problems. Please don't mistake my focus on some of these more practical matters for an avoidance mechanism, it's just difficult to fight a war with two fronts. I may not have verbalized my internal struggles as much because those by their very nature are long term problems. My wife's relationship with her old friend is clearly escalating and without a plan of action I believe that will quickly progress to a place where recovery will be much more difficult if not impossible. I think of it as putting out the brush fire before figuring out what caused it.
I am finding it difficult to organize many of my thoughts because most of the issues seem to be pretty inter-related so sorting them out in a linear fashion is problematic. It's like one giant mobius strip of insecurities! So please bear with me if this doesn't come out right. @Angeline, I mentioned my concerns about fear and dread as a motivation because I think it is spot on in terms of what motivated people. I was speaking about the importance of that from a short term perspective only since I now see my wife focusing her attention outward. If she doesn't want to be open to seeing the efforts of my hard work then I will certainly be a better man but our relationship will end. I agree with you that self-improvement and becoming a better man is what leads to the long term attraction (is love really just the fear of losing something you highly value???) but in this case I need something more concrete to jolt her out of her dopamine highs. When you are not in a LTR the fix for a relationship crisis is to let go and there is a good risk/reward ratio. In a marriage the underlying motivation, i.e. fear of loss is the same but the tactics are inappropriate. I believe I was merely longing for a simpler solution to a simpler problem.
I believe that the ultimatum approach is a 'hail mary' tactic for two reasons: First, my wife (dare I generalize to most women?) will respond better to emotional stimuli rather than logical concepts. That is to say there is a world of difference between feeling that she is losing something she does value versus telling her she is going to lose something she should value. Read that sentence again, I think its a good one. Secondly, when you give somebody an ultimatum they have the option to pick something you don't want them to pick. Ideally they get to decide between solutions that are generally acceptable to you. I can certainly move the goal posts and say that I am not 'losing' if she walks because frankly I can see some pretty good upsides, i.e. don't fall victim to Oneitis. Ultimately I can't say if everything will work out even after my impending vast personal improvements but I do know that a necessary condition for success in this relationship is for her to be at last neutrally disposed to letting that happen.
When it comes to changing my behaviours I noticed you jumped right on porn and I think we are not entirely in agreement about the nature of the problem. I think there are people who are literally addicted to the feelings they get watching it. You hear about that when some guy in IRS office watches hours and hours everyday instead of doing his job. Ok maybe that isn't such a bad thing...but my point is that the act of watching or jerking off is the addiction. In my case that was really just the tool that allowed me to not confront my frustration with my relationship. I knew that bringing it up wasn't working so I was intent on not nagging her and it took just enough of the edge off which allowed to focus my energies on all the support activities I thought I was supposed to until she 'came around'. So I could spend 15 minutes a day, take care of business and be about my business. I think the physical side effects are still related but I think there is a distinct difference in understanding people who become addicted to pain killers to deal with a chronic pain versus those who just crave getting high. I kept going back to it because deep down I already knew that all the rest of my efforts were not working and really had no chance of working. Now that I understand I can focus my energies more productively elsewhere and that it is counter productive it hasn't been a problem to avoid that particular activity for several weeks. My main concern moving forward are any lasting side effects regarding visual stimulation etc.
When it comes to running the MAP I don't have many obvious ones to focus on, things like poor health or finances. Note I said obvious, not easy. The two behaviour / personality traits I need to focus on are accepting confrontation and procrastination. Those are tied in with things like self-esteem and confidence but I believe those are two practical ways to address those underlying issues which are much harder to understand. Without going into the details (for a change right?) I am starting to understand how my fear of confrontation and tendency to procrastinate have been contributing to my failing relationship. I will start looking at ways to improve those two things but clearly that is a process not a binary on/off decision.
First, my wife (dare I generalize to most women people?) will respond better to emotional stimuli rather than logical concepts.
FTFY.
Human action is primarily based on emotion, not logic. People who are even moderately smart are really good at explaining solid logical reasons for doing things primarily as justification for what they have already done. The bottom line is that to affect people you must affect their emotions more than their logical thinking brain.
That's the beauty of the MAP process. It exposes the machinery of emotions. The amazing thing is even though you understand how it works, it still works.
I think you're brave to come here and lay your story out for internet strangers to go through in hopes of getting some help and guidance. May I suggest a reframing of your approach here on the forum? Your chosen title "Sit back and enjoy the dumpster fire" seems to say you expect us to get our jollies from the pain you're going through right now. It is worth your consideration to think the people commenting on your post are compassionate fellow travelers, not snide jerks who are entertained by your pain.
I'm glad you're here and I look forward to seeing how you grow over the next weeks and months.
It seems to me that your primary defense mechanism is intellectualizing your problem. Consider this. Much of what you write comes across like the musings of Spock.
I could (and have considered) writing a treatise on marriage after an affair. Your wife appears to be engaging in (at least) her third affair. This is extremely problematic. You have received excellent advice. Bluntly, fuck particular laws regarding recording someone. Buy a VAR and use it only for your knowledge. Destroy the recording after it shows you what is obvious to me (her affair).
It still comes back to whether you want to continue this marriage or whether you want to end it. Keep in mind, as has been said, your stay plan for yourself and your go plan is generally the same.
Bluntly, fuck particular laws regarding recording someone. Buy a VAR and use it only for your knowledge. Destroy the recording after it shows you what is obvious to me (her affair).
The problem with this is the bolded part, because people have a really, really hard time keeping their mouths shut. Especially angry people. Its a really bad idea to give a really smart attorney something to work with as things unfold - 2+2=You Did a No No. Then watch what happens under oath in a Depo.
OP has advice from a divorce attorney in his jurisdiction regarding this. I don't think its wise for any of us to countermand that.
Listen to your Attorney.
"Fall down seven times, stand up eight" Japanese Proverb
And frankly, ^^^ This gets back to my question to him earlier - what happened after Strikes 1 and 2? Was there a discussion? An agreement? How exactly was this left?
Cause it might be really easy to call this Strike 3, Yer Out...
"Fall down seven times, stand up eight" Japanese Proverb
Bluntly, fuck particular laws regarding recording someone. Buy a VAR and use it only for your knowledge. Destroy the recording after it shows you what is obvious to me (her affair).
The problem with this is the bolded part, because people have a really, really hard time keeping their mouths shut. Especially angry people. Its a really bad idea to give a really smart attorney something to work with as things unfold - 2+2=You Did a No No. Then watch what happens under oath in a Depo.
OP has advice from a divorce attorney in his jurisdiction regarding this. I don't think its wise for any of us to countermand that.
Listen to your Attorney.
Your advice is good and appropriate. I, like others, project who I am into these discussions. I would have no difficulty hearing a VAR, destroying it, and divorcing my wife if it documented cheating. I would simply tell my wife that I know she has been having an affair and that the marriage was ended. Of course, given that I am on the outside of all of this, I already know whether OP's wife is having an affair. I wouldn't need the VAR.
In my view, he needs to decide if he wants to continue working toward keeping this marriage or ending it. In either case, he still needs to MAP and in either case, he will receive amazing support\guidance from this forum.
It seems to me that your primary defense mechanism is intellectualizing your problem. Consider this.
That, and bitter self-deprecating humour.
It seems to me you that if you think mapping is too slow a response to the immediate brush-fire, then you have two reasonable options: - start the divorce process with a lawyer. (You can always drop it later if the fire goes out) - or phone up "Chris", and say "I am concerned your relationship with my wife is drifting towards becoming inappropriate. Please knock it off." And then listen.
Enneagram type 5 w6.
If I offer lots of advice, it's probably really me giving advice to myself. That always seems to happen.
Sounds like you have more info on this than you're telling. You're tech savvy so I'm sure whatever info you may have covers any text/calling.
So if it's texting and only texts then a VAR is useless.
Take your lawyers advice, because he won't want to be bailing you out of something like recording someone without their knowledge. If you have to and want to risk it you can't ever let wife know about VAR or evidence that it may catch. But sounds like even though your wife may be good at hiding an EA/PA, there is 99.9% chance she's leaving evidence somewhere.
But you have decide even if she's not in a EA/PA, if she's wife material. So far she's not in my opinion. I would have been really pissed about the bouncer thing. And when you two called off engage'mt, I can see trying again but what happened with her friend and her I would of seen this pattern and considered her "Not wife material"
At this point evidence is no longer an issue. I take it since you met with a lawyer your going the D route?
I think you should give Chris a call. See what he has to say for himself. Since your already sure she is at the least having an EA. I see no point in waiting unless it will help you legally. Maybe send his wife a screen shot of your phone bill showing the number of text. Om will be too busy trying to put out the fire at home to mess with your wife.
If you are going to wait to change your personality to be more able to confront, it will certainly get to deep to break. As Athol says, you have a short time to break it up.
As far as doing more investigative work. You need to do more, to gather more evidence on whether her affair has gone physical or not. Without hardcore proof, she can DARVO, gaslight, and trickle truth you to death and you will never know for sure. The evidence you currently have indicates an emotional affair or at the very least inappropriate behavior on her part, that she can explain away. Most cheaters will only admit to what they think you know.
Suggest Talk About Marriage - Coping with Infidelity as a good resource for digging out the truth. They have a 'Standard Evidence Post' that details most actions you can take. There is a poster there named Gus Polanski that is the resident expert on phones and how to extract deleted files.
With respect to VAR's, (car or home or both) you are right that there is a clear legal issue as most states are at least a one party consent. However, the purpose of a VAR is to get you ahead of the curve on her activities/plans so you can be in the right place, at the right time to capture the evidence you need. Never reveal your sources. Most times a well placed, quality VAR with lithium batteries will tell you everything you need to know within a couple of weeks.
Comments
Remember to play!
Do the right thing, whether anyone is watching or not.
Be married, until you are not.
Email address: angeline.greenwood@att.net
The religious side of things isn't worth shaming her, it would actually hurt you and your kids more than her. If that mattered she wouldn't be having affairs with men and women. She has poor boundaries and doesn't see what you offer to the marriage as value enough to stay in or thinks she can get away with it.
If you want out, now is the time to allow her to get out without it getting vindictive and/or greedy. From a business decision it stands to reason to "sell" now.
You are emotionally hurt right now but your best interest is to face the truth of your situation. You are married to a serial cheater, and your best bet is to get her out of your life as much as you can and protect your self and your children. If she immediately comes clean and starts showing remorse then you might be able to salvage the releationship, but the odds are on the side of recidivism if you don't change yourself too.
I really don't know what you would lose from just confronting her with the facts:
1) You have cheated before
2) You treat me with disrespect and not like a husband and lover
3) You have excessive communication with someone else and it is an inappropriate relationship. She spends her energy outside the marriage.
4) You don't want to hear anymore lies
You should immediately require all communication devices from her. If she says no, just say you are going to an attorney on Monday. You are the goose that lays the golden eggs, she might be able to get out some alimony and assets, but you are your business and could rebuild much faster once you have this emotional turmoil out of your life. At this point still it is better to bust things now before your business gets serious traction.
I honestly think you want to just blow it up. I don't see any real reason to do it in front of the church or her parents, that is just revenge fantasy (I understand it, trust me). I would cancel her parents trip.
If she comes clean you are going to have to both get counseling. You blow up the affair by informing the other man's wife and giving both a no contact letter. I would determine if there is anyone else who knows about this and cut them out of your lives too because they are aiding and abetting.
Then you are going to have to MAP in your weak areas. You have the financial side down and the pure physical but you are missing a key piece on mindset and enforcing boundaries.
That being said, I'm relatively certain that if I caught my wife having an affair at the time of the affair, I would divorce. That's who I am. Others have not divorced and have had marital success. There are a lot of variables that influence this decision.
And yeah, before deploying any eavesdropping methods you better know your jurisdictions laws. Before you wind up comitting a crime.
How will you live well today?
Based on circumstantial evidence, your wife's past behavior, and your wife's current behavior you believe she is having an affair. I agree with you on this. You don't have a smoking gun but hard evidence, depending on what outcome your going for, may not be necessary.
What's your main objective here?
If a third affair is a deal breaker for you then I like @Blackwulf s advice. Forget searching for conclusive evidence just contact a lawyer and begin moving on with your life.
If you're hoping for reconciliation and attempting to repair the marriage then hire a private investigator immediately, keep monitoring comms, and stick with your poker face.
Remember to play!
Do the right thing, whether anyone is watching or not.
Be married, until you are not.
Email address: angeline.greenwood@att.net
I am finding it difficult to organize many of my thoughts because most of the issues seem to be pretty inter-related so sorting them out in a linear fashion is problematic. It's like one giant mobius strip of insecurities! So please bear with me if this doesn't come out right. @Angeline, I mentioned my concerns about fear and dread as a motivation because I think it is spot on in terms of what motivated people. I was speaking about the importance of that from a short term perspective only since I now see my wife focusing her attention outward. If she doesn't want to be open to seeing the efforts of my hard work then I will certainly be a better man but our relationship will end. I agree with you that self-improvement and becoming a better man is what leads to the long term attraction (is love really just the fear of losing something you highly value???) but in this case I need something more concrete to jolt her out of her dopamine highs. When you are not in a LTR the fix for a relationship crisis is to let go and there is a good risk/reward ratio. In a marriage the underlying motivation, i.e. fear of loss is the same but the tactics are inappropriate. I believe I was merely longing for a simpler solution to a simpler problem.
I believe that the ultimatum approach is a 'hail mary' tactic for two reasons: First, my wife (dare I generalize to most women?) will respond better to emotional stimuli rather than logical concepts. That is to say there is a world of difference between feeling that she is losing something she does value versus telling her she is going to lose something she should value. Read that sentence again, I think its a good one. Secondly, when you give somebody an ultimatum they have the option to pick something you don't want them to pick. Ideally they get to decide between solutions that are generally acceptable to you. I can certainly move the goal posts and say that I am not 'losing' if she walks because frankly I can see some pretty good upsides, i.e. don't fall victim to Oneitis. Ultimately I can't say if everything will work out even after my impending vast personal improvements but I do know that a necessary condition for success in this relationship is for her to be at last neutrally disposed to letting that happen.
When it comes to changing my behaviours I noticed you jumped right on porn and I think we are not entirely in agreement about the nature of the problem. I think there are people who are literally addicted to the feelings they get watching it. You hear about that when some guy in IRS office watches hours and hours everyday instead of doing his job. Ok maybe that isn't such a bad thing...but my point is that the act of watching or jerking off is the addiction. In my case that was really just the tool that allowed me to not confront my frustration with my relationship. I knew that bringing it up wasn't working so I was intent on not nagging her and it took just enough of the edge off which allowed to focus my energies on all the support activities I thought I was supposed to until she 'came around'. So I could spend 15 minutes a day, take care of business and be about my business. I think the physical side effects are still related but I think there is a distinct difference in understanding people who become addicted to pain killers to deal with a chronic pain versus those who just crave getting high. I kept going back to it because deep down I already knew that all the rest of my efforts were not working and really had no chance of working. Now that I understand I can focus my energies more productively elsewhere and that it is counter productive it hasn't been a problem to avoid that particular activity for several weeks. My main concern moving forward are any lasting side effects regarding visual stimulation etc.
When it comes to running the MAP I don't have many obvious ones to focus on, things like poor health or finances. Note I said obvious, not easy. The two behaviour / personality traits I need to focus on are accepting confrontation and procrastination. Those are tied in with things like self-esteem and confidence but I believe those are two practical ways to address those underlying issues which are much harder to understand. Without going into the details (for a change right?) I am starting to understand how my fear of confrontation and tendency to procrastinate have been contributing to my failing relationship. I will start looking at ways to improve those two things but clearly that is a process not a binary on/off decision.
FTFY.
Human action is primarily based on emotion, not logic. People who are even moderately smart are really good at explaining solid logical reasons for doing things primarily as justification for what they have already done. The bottom line is that to affect people you must affect their emotions more than their logical thinking brain.
That's the beauty of the MAP process. It exposes the machinery of emotions. The amazing thing is even though you understand how it works, it still works.
I think you're brave to come here and lay your story out for internet strangers to go through in hopes of getting some help and guidance. May I suggest a reframing of your approach here on the forum? Your chosen title "Sit back and enjoy the dumpster fire" seems to say you expect us to get our jollies from the pain you're going through right now. It is worth your consideration to think the people commenting on your post are compassionate fellow travelers, not snide jerks who are entertained by your pain.
I'm glad you're here and I look forward to seeing how you grow over the next weeks and months.
I could (and have considered) writing a treatise on marriage after an affair. Your wife appears to be engaging in (at least) her third affair. This is extremely problematic. You have received excellent advice. Bluntly, fuck particular laws regarding recording someone. Buy a VAR and use it only for your knowledge. Destroy the recording after it shows you what is obvious to me (her affair).
It still comes back to whether you want to continue this marriage or whether you want to end it. Keep in mind, as has been said, your stay plan for yourself and your go plan is generally the same.
OP has advice from a divorce attorney in his jurisdiction regarding this. I don't think its wise for any of us to countermand that.
Listen to your Attorney.
How will you live well today?
Cause it might be really easy to call this Strike 3, Yer Out...
How will you live well today?
In my view, he needs to decide if he wants to continue working toward keeping this marriage or ending it. In either case, he still needs to MAP and in either case, he will receive amazing support\guidance from this forum.
It seems to me you that if you think mapping is too slow a response to the immediate brush-fire, then you have two reasonable options:
- start the divorce process with a lawyer. (You can always drop it later if the fire goes out)
- or phone up "Chris", and say "I am concerned your relationship with my wife is drifting towards becoming inappropriate. Please knock it off." And then listen.
So if it's texting and only texts then a VAR is useless.
Take your lawyers advice, because he won't want to be bailing you out of something like recording someone without their knowledge. If you have to and want to risk it you can't ever let wife know about VAR or evidence that it may catch. But sounds like even though your wife may be good at hiding an EA/PA, there is 99.9% chance she's leaving evidence somewhere.
But you have decide even if she's not in a EA/PA, if she's wife material. So far she's not in my opinion. I would have been really pissed about the bouncer thing. And when you two called off engage'mt, I can see trying again but what happened with her friend and her I would of seen this pattern and considered her "Not wife material"
At this point evidence is no longer an issue. I take it since you met with a lawyer your going the D route?
I think you should give Chris a call. See what he has to say for himself. Since your already sure she is at the least having an EA. I see no point in waiting unless it will help you legally. Maybe send his wife a screen shot of your phone bill showing the number of text. Om will be too busy trying to put out the fire at home to mess with your wife.
If you are going to wait to change your personality to be more able to confront, it will certainly get to deep to break. As Athol says, you have a short time to break it up.
Suggest Talk About Marriage - Coping with Infidelity as a good resource for digging out the truth. They have a 'Standard Evidence Post' that details most actions you can take. There is a poster there named Gus Polanski that is the resident expert on phones and how to extract deleted files.
With respect to VAR's, (car or home or both) you are right that there is a clear legal issue as most states are at least a one party consent. However, the purpose of a VAR is to get you ahead of the curve on her activities/plans so you can be in the right place, at the right time to capture the evidence you need. Never reveal your sources. Most times a well placed, quality VAR with lithium batteries will tell you everything you need to know within a couple of weeks.
Best of luck.