I confronted my wife about having an affair and she confirmed it. She works in a super high stress, high prestige job and the affair is someone in her office. Their work is only a year long and it is largely confidential so I can't really discuss much of it with her. The job ends in june (good news) but then she is free to move wherever (bad news) They work between 12-14 hours per day with about 40 other people and worked more closely on a big successful project together in early February. The affair started sometime after that. In February, my wife experienced three big deaths, 1 family friend. 1 a co worker, 1 a family member, all within a three week period. We got into a bunch of fights around this time related to the stress of the deaths, and I thought something was going on with her so was not as supportive as maybe I could have been. Turns out these two have been working out for an hour everyday, sneaking away from work on weekends (When I thought they were working at the office) to do whatever. Now I confront her. She tells me she is in love with this guy (after 2-3 months), and wants a divorce. My wife is a deeply religious person who has up until this point, never believed in divorce. Both our parents are together for 30plus years. We have been married for nearly 4 years, together for 6, and at least through December, she was signing the praises of how I was the most supportive husband ever. I want my wife back. Both the OP and my Wife's jobs end at the end of June. He told his wife of 6 years (dating for 10) that he wants a divorce and is moving with my wife to her hometown when they finish their job in a few months. My wife is 31, he is 31, his wife is 31. According to both of them, they have not slept together, they have kissed, been over our houses a number of times but have not had sex (my wife waited until marriage to have sex, so it does not surprise me if true but I have some doubts). In December we started trying to have kids, but stopped in early February because my wife was worried the stress of the job might cause a miscarriage (a good friend had just had a miscarriage a few weeks before).
I sent out an email to all her family and friends letting them know about the affair and asking for them to help me get my wife back. Honestly it seems to crazy to me. 2 months, high stress, deaths, etc and winds up with someone from the office---its like a bad novel. Her mom is coming into town in a few hours. I have spoken extensively with the other spouse and she wants to fight like hell for her husband too. She has yet to send out an email to all his family and friends but has called his parents who apparently are worried about his drinking and stress and thinks he needs help. They are coming to visit him this weekend.
She slept in the other room last night. How do I act around her? What do I do next? We are supposed to travel out of town Friday for a wedding that she is in the wedding party for (the bride was on my email letting her know of the affair)? What do I do? How can I act.
I have not told her coworkers yet because if I did, it would likely make the news or at least the gossip. I would prefer to keep her professional reputation as intact as possible but since they work together and I think my first step is getting the relationship to stop as quickly as possible, in which case I might have to send it to her co workers and both of their very powerful supervisors.
Please let me know anything you think I should do/know. This is totally out of character for my wife and I need to snap her out of it.
You may be on moderation now, post in small frequent replies and stay on this thread until you reach 100 posts (for your thread, you can also post on other peoples threads to give support). Especially on this Newcomers forum, where the posting activity is very active, and your posts can quickly fall to the bottom of the page or even several pages down. Keep journaling and asking questions - people will come! Most important - POST!
Get out and Get a Life (GAL). DETACH.
Believe none of what he or she says and half of what he/she does.
Have NO EXPECTATIONS.
Take care of yourself, breathe, eat, sleep, exercise.
Take the parts of this advice that you need and don't worry if I have repeated something that you have already done.
Here are a few links to threads that will help you immensely:
I feel for you, man. Your situation is very much like mine with regards to Ws job stress level. My W is a high ranking officer who had extreme amounts of responsibility. However, unlike yours, mine also had severe mental issues, which must have come to light in part due to the stress.
I've heard some great advice on here about blowing up affairs. I would suggest that you might want to pull that last trigger - are you friends with people in the office? But, as many say on here, as long as she is involved with the OM, your relationship isn't on her radar - not in the least. Also, you must examine your own relationship so you can see if you can find what caused her to stray. Were there problems? Somewhere along the line she felt something was missing and found it in the OM.
I contacted my Ws family about her A and it didn't go as planned - family always support each other first... My Ws family is a bit on the trashy side (sorry, but true) and one actually supported her affair. I really do not like that member...
Come to think of it, I would out her in the final place.
As far as the trip - if you go, keep in mind that you pretty much are nothing to her. Sorry to be so callous, but that's just the way it is. If not, would she be involved in an A and talking marriage? Been there, done that - and now will be divorced soon...
There are moments in this life when you are so confident in the rightness of your actions, that not even for a second do you consider the option that you might be wrong.
One thing is certain, this is going to take months, even years to play out. Be patient and understand the process. No-one snaps out of this... You fall, you cry, you get up. REPEAT.
Just cos things are going right, doesn't mean that they were always wrong.
Echo what Jeep said there. There are no quick fixes in any of our situations. This is a long haul journey for all of us.
Those links above are gold dust. The information in them is incredibly valuable.
Something else I'd add in there, something for you to start thinking about (if you can at this point in time) is that you can't do anything to control your W's behaviour. From what I understand, anything that you try to do will backfire on you and make her want to act up even more.
So the emails you're writing? Don't send them. I know just how hard it is, trust me. But her behaviour will show itself to be what it is in the fullness of time. You don't have to do anything.
The only thing you can do at this point in time is to focus on your own care and wellbeing.
She called. Said she was pissed about the email I sent and wanted to make sure there wouldn't be anymore. Told me it sounded like I was threatening her and she didnt want her professional reputation ruined. We talked civilly about plans for the weekend (i'm not going to the wedding, but going out there to hang out with friends). We wont see each other until the plane ride home when we are sitting next to each other. She asked a few times what I wanted, what I was thinking etc. I told her I was thinking she is borderline crazy right now, acting irrationally but there is nothing really I can do about it so go and do whatever it is you are going to do to fill the hole in your heart. I think she was somewhat taken a back by the answer.
Today they both are back at work together. His wife is finally home from his trip so they are going to have it out. His parents and her parents are flying into town this week to talk some sense into the other guy. Wife is staying at our house tonight with my MIL and then next week is staying the whole week with a girlfriend. She promised her mom that she is not going to stay with him but who knows if that's true. But not that it really matters if she is seeing him at the office all day and going to workout with him everyday.
MIL told me that she agreed to go to counseling with me if the person was willing to listen to both sides. She never mentioned that to me (and I never asked). Not sure how much good that will do given that there is no indication yet they will break it off.
Just keep POSTING and one other bit of advice from Wonka that I totally agree with.
Originally Posted By: Wonka
Get DR/DB book. Keep this to yourself. DO NOT share this book or this site at all with your spouse. It is your playbook and not to be shared with the "opposing" team.
It is important to clear the search/browsing history from your computer on a daily basis to prevent the possibility for your WAS to stumble on the DB site and discover your posts here on DB. Erasing the search history will protect your posts and you as well.
We have seen too many Marriages blow up in pieces after the WAS discovers the DB site or DR book. Why is that? It is because the WAS thinks, erroneously I might add, that you are "manipulating" them back into the M.
Keep the DR book and DB site very close to your vest.
Well at least for the moment it sounds like you guys have positive pro marriage supporters. My WW didn't have anyone pro marriage to talk to, or should I say she chose not to talk to anyone really pro marriage, and her biggest supporters imcluding mother, step father, father, brother, girlfriends, OM, really aren't pro marriage or pro family. They are all about her being happy. I use to be a big influence but have stepped back and she hasn't asked.
Ralph88 Me 40s W 30s, D5 D3 , M7 T9 2013 B drop 1, EA found 2016 B drop 2, EA/PA? 2/16 Physical Seperation 2/16 I filed for D 4/16 PA Confirmed
Well at least for the moment it sounds like you guys have positive pro marriage supporters. My WW didn't have anyone pro marriage to talk to, or should I say she chose not to talk to anyone really pro marriage, and her biggest supporters imcluding mother, step father, father, brother, girlfriends, OM, really aren't pro marriage or pro family. They are all about her being happy. I use to be a big influence but have stepped back and she hasn't asked.
everyone involved comes from a complete family and from what I have heard from the other wife, everyone on his side, her side, my side and my wife's side are appalled at this and are working to stop it.
Just keep POSTING and one other bit of advice from Wonka that I totally agree with.
Originally Posted By: Wonka
It is important to clear the search/browsing history from your computer on a daily basis to prevent the possibility for your WAS to stumble on the DB site and discover your posts here on DB. Erasing the search history will protect your posts and you as well. Keep the DR book and DB site very close to your vest.
Just a bit of "tech" advice. Most browsers have an "incognito" mode that doesn't save anything to your history so you don't have to clear things out. Since W and I have different devices and she can't access mine I don't worry about it. Icognito mode can be a bit of a pain because it doesn't save passwords etc but that can be a good thing. I also went and changed all my passwords for Google, Dropbox and the lock screen on my phone and tablet. I don't "think" that W would try to hack into me but you never know when things might take a nasty turn. I also have an old cell phone set up as a security camera on my home office desk where all the backups are stored. Officially it's watching the rose on my desk.
This sort of thing is double-edged though - it was one of the things I noticed when I started to dig into why W wanted to leave was that her passwords had changed which was very suspicious. Fortunately (?) I got around that and that was how I discovered the OM and ended up here.
On BD H52, W50 T27, M26 S21, D23 BD-9-Mar-16 D-15-Jan-18 Final-19-Apr-18 I am a storyteller. The story may do you no good. But a story is never for the listener. It is always for the one who tells
