Should I confront my wife?

[trinitytrio]

I have been married for 14 years with 3 kids aged 12, 9 and 7. I am 42-year old and my current wife is 3 years younger. This is my second marriage. My present wife once had an affair about 9 years ago when I confronted her with evidence and she had since stopped the relationship under tremendous pressure from me. We went through hell and a lot of efforts to save our marriage. All these years since then, we have been very happy together. Recently I sensed that my wife is acting weird, and it is the same feeling that led me to uncover her infidelity years ago. I do have a piece of information that suggests strongly that the relationship is more than just normal friends. In the meantime, my wife is acting perfectly normal with me. We continue to be as loving and we are basically a happy family. My question is do I confront my wife with this piece of information (letter) at the risk of her accusing me of intruding her privacy? I am also concerned that confronting her will be a lose-lose situation because she can always promised to never do it again but I have no way of knowing for sure if she continues to do so. I also know that this thing is like addiction and is not easy to stop by just bringing the matter up. It involves a lot of effort as I have been through it before. By the way, this guy is a colleague of hers. I know that if I just talk to her without evidence, she will accuse me of not trusting her after all these years and that I never really recovered from her previous affair and how all these is so unfair to her. If I leave things as it is, I am afraid that it might just progress further into something more serious. At the same time, I am happy with how she treat me and the family. If I confront her, I will definitely disturb the present happiness and balance that took us so long to develop. What should I do? Should I just keep quiet and then do all my best to fulfil her emotional needs. I admit that I sometimes ignore her need to communicate because of my work but have since attended to her after I found out about this affair. Do I pretend nothing has happened and try to compete for her love with this guy? It is very hard to suppress my suspicion and it does hurt a lot but I am sure I can take it if that is the best way to save our marriage. I treasure my wife and the family a lot. Much more than I can say. I know that she feels the same for me and family. Should I just wait until further signs of "escalating intensity" like if she is acting cold etc? At the same time, I do not want to waste the golden chance of stopping the affair at its infancy. Will my confronting her create pressure for her to back off or does it give the other guy the perfect opportunity, or her the excuse to bring it to the next stage? I am really confused. I am normally quite good at handling these type of situation. But the stakes here is too high for me to exercise my judgment. I really hope for sincere and constructive help here. As I have said, I went all the way to put a lot of pressure on her before she ended her first affair. I am not sure whether to do it again? It was a period of hell.

[overseas2004]

Remember the three monkeys Hear no evil? See no evil? etc.... Well when you place your hands over your eyes does the fact that evil is going on change? Or is the problem still there???

 

If you have conclusive evidence about your wife cheating on you (and for the love of God this is twice) you already have a reason to leave. Let alone to confront her and make her stop?

 

If you just ignore it... the biggest likelihood is that she will not stop it. And that will land you a broken heart and maybe even divorce court.

 

Your problem is very difficult. She has shown a pattern of this behavior and last time you forgave it. Here she goes again. It seems to me she will either keep doing this and you will keep forgiving her or you will end up getting tired of her behaviour and get a divorce. The third alternative is for you to just put up with it.

 

Very hard.. I would not want to be in your place.

[spencer]

I would ask her to explain the letter. just tell her you came across it and it brought up those feelings of fear again. proceed to say that you are happy in the marriage but if she feel differently to please tell you so you may both work on it.

 

one way or another I would have to know.

[Arabess]

I agree with the other posters. You can't just let it go or it will eat you up.

 

However, you should bring it up without accusing her. I had a male friend at work who was once unfaithful. His wife knew we went to lunch and began accusing him. In our case it WASN'T true at all.

 

So, before you get all upset, check out the facts and give her a chance to explain.

[Fedup&givingup]

You say that you are happy with her and so is she, and that you know she loves you. If she were happy and in love with you, she would NOT be carrying on with this other man.

 

The question of whether or not you should confront her or not is really about you...do you want to live in a marriage where you KNOW your wife is about to (or is ) have an affair? That's your choice to make.

 

IMO, people who cheat once cheat again. It's their nature, behaviour, etc. They are prone to it for some reason. That's her...what about YOU.

[reservoirdog1]

Get a keylogger on your computer immediately. That will probably give you more information.

 

Given your situation, I'd be suspicious of her. And if she is cheating again, that makes her a repeat offender, and not worth staying with, IMHO.

 

Keep fulfilling her emotional needs. Suggest having this "friend" over for dinner, or that the three of you go out together: firstly to guage her reaction to the idea, and secondly, to observe them together.

 

Personally, I think you need more ammo before you go to her. If you go to her with what scant evidence you have, it's much easier for her to deny it. Remember, she's already (a long time ago, admittedly) shown that she can't be trusted. I'd like to think that people can change but, given the story of my own marriage, I'm not sure they can. Maybe I'm wrong, though.