Wife is having an e-mail affair--looking for advice

[amillion11]

I hope you folks can give me some input. I’m sorry this is sort of long. I have some questions below, but I’d appreciate advice on any aspect of my situation.

 

My wife is having an e-mail affair with her high school boyfriend. They started talking to each other on e-mail a few months ago. I found about 10 e-mails between them in an old family e-mail account we shared (but she had taken it over because I had my own). One day, she’d asked me to get some information off the account and I found a folder full of their notes.

 

It started out with them getting reacquainted. He told her he was single. They talked about regular things and eventually slightly-more-than-friend things...then after a while she started to share tidbits about how she was dissatisfied with me in various ways. He egged her on at every opportunity to say how unhappy she was with me. She didn't always join in, but we've had our share of problems over the years and we've been in couple's therapy since last October. Sometimes he'd talk about their old sex life together. She didn't join in on that except once to acknowledge that she had fond memories.

 

Three months ago, we bought her a laptop and she started working from home. She transferred most of her e-mail correspondence over to that computer. She set up a password entry on the computer and was very protective of it, so of course I was suspicious.

 

I figured out her password after a few weeks and took a look. They mostly enjoyed each other's company, but he kept hammering her about how he thought she was unhappy any time she mentioned me. I let it go on because technically I wasn't supposed to be looking at stuff on her computer and the conversations were pretty tame.

 

Anyhow, about a month ago he started talking about how he wished they had stayed together. Then he pushed some stuff about his regrets and talked about how he was lonely. Then my wife suggested he should date a friend of hers, kind of in jest because he lives about 600 miles away.

 

It was about then that I decided to check into this guy, and sure enough he's married and has 3 kids. I found pictures of him and his wife and all kinds of stuff on google.

 

So two days after my wife suggests he should date her friend, he starts saying how much he misses her and thinks about her a lot. She replies that she thinks about him, and whammo--last week they're having cybersex and talking about how much they want each other. She even dropped the notion that they should do a "Same Time Next Year" arrangement.

 

So there it is...my wife is having an e-mail affair complete with emotional infidelity and plans to maybe scoot away for physical encounters.

 

And again...she doesn’t know he’s married. We’re in couple’s therapy, which I feel like we’re making progress in but she says we’re going nowhere. We have six kids. I’ve been trying to do anything I can to keep things going well between us because I want to stay in my kids’ lives. We live in a no-fault divorce state and I don’t like it here. If we got divorced I’d want to go back to my home town and take my kids, but that won’t happen. And I'll be stuck here just to be near them.

 

So I’m thinking about sending both of them this e-mail (because, like I said, I want to try to fix things because I want to stay in my kids’ lives):

 

 

xxWife's Namexx,

 

End your affair today. I'll allow you one last e-mail to him to say goodbye, but after that it's over for good. No contact ever again.

 

Our marriage has already suffered terribly from your emotional infidelity with him. I will work with you through the extraordinarily difficult times we have ahead of us because I love you so much.

 

If you two will not end this today--and forever--I will contact his wife and tell her what's been going on between you two.

 

She'll probably be very interested to know that he makes up lies about being single and talks about her as if she were just some woman he dated a few times for a little while...just some woman who his friends pushed on him before he turned his intentions elsewhere. His 3 kids will also probably wonder why their father denies their existence.

 

xxWife's Namexx, maybe you can use your last e-mail to ask him to come clean to his wife about any other affairs he's had. It's the only decent thing he can do at this point.

 

He doesn't respect you, our marriage or our family. The fact that he's coldly and deliberately harmed our family is bad enough because we really don't mean anything to him. But since he doesn't respect his own wife and family, he really needs to get some help before he harms them. If he's half the man he thinks he is, he'll follow through with your request.

 

I love you and await your response.

 

xxMy Namexx

 

 

I know her first response will probably be that I’m poking into her privacy. I’ve looked at enough of the threads from guys who are in similar situations to know this is a deflection...an attempt to blame me for her infidelity. I’ll just tell her that if she was actually doing it with this guy, it wouldn’t be considered a breach of her privacy if I hired a private investigator and got photos.

 

I wonder about the private e-mail account. I had to figure out her password to get into it. Is there any kind of legal trouble for doing that? I know I’m sort of a bad person for doing it...but I think it’s by far the lesser evil in our situation. Any opinions about that?

 

I expect that she’ll be crushed when she’s learns the truth about this lying twerp and probably won’t want him any more. But maybe I’m just being optimistic. I wouldn’t hesitate to stick it to him by ratting him out, but I think it’d hurt his family more than him.

 

Anybody think I’m going to be able to patch things up with her? I put my chances at about 50/50. I don’t like her much right now, but I used to love her. And as far as I’m concerned, it’s all about my kids (have I said that a million times yet? ).

 

Anybody think I should just kick her out? I’ve thought about it. Her friends and family would find out pretty quickly because she’d have to go live with her parents or in-town siblings. She’d be pretty embarrassed by that because she’s sort of religious.

 

Anyone think I should wait and pretend not to know and keep working on things in couple’s therapy? I have pulled a few “clairvoyant” moves in therapy while this thing has been going on because I knew details about her feelings. And she’s not cheating physically (yet). I could probably know within hours if she even attempted to set up a rendezvous. But I think he’s going to keep working her heart and mind against me.

 

I wonder sometimes if she wouldn't be so willing to say that couple's therapy isn't working if she didn't have this jerk telling her that she's unhappy with me. Maybe that's wishful thinking. Any opinions?

 

I don’t feel like she deserves much of a second chance and I am pretty pissed about this whole thing. When we got married, we said that if either of us ever cheated it was over. I don’t want it to be over, because...well you know why.

 

Anything anybody can offer will help a lot. I know I only have one shot to do this right. I don’t know if I’m overlooking something or if there are other things I haven’t considered.

 

Thanks in advance.

[TMCM]

I highly advice that you first send an exposure letter to his W explaining about his ongoing affair with your W, and after you get a response from her then send the two of them notice that you have already exposed the affair to his W. Include her name, phone number and the names of their children. I can almost guarantee you that the OM will sh*t in his pants when he reads your email and he will most likely drop your W like a hot potato. OM are cowards and when they realize that they can be severely hurt by the betrayed husband, they usually end up high tailing it out of Dodge. Good luck.

 

TMCM

[In Like Flynn]

If you can't find his wife just email it to him telling him to stop or his wife and three kids will find out. Then CC your wife so she see's it. Attach the info you found about his family so she sees it for herself.

[LucreziaBorgia]

Originally posted by TMCM

I highly advice that you first send an exposure letter to his W explaining about his ongoing affair with your W, and after you get a response from her then send the two of them notice that you have already exposed the affair to his W. Include her name, phone number and the names of their children. I can almost guarantee you that the OM will sh*t in his pants when he reads your email and he will most likely drop your W like a hot potato. OM are cowards and when they realize that they can be severely hurt by the betrayed husband, they usually end up high tailing it out of Dodge. Good luck.

 

TMCM

 

I second this advice. Expose the affair first, and then deal with the fallout. Your W will not willingly end this herself. She will likely lie to you and say she has, and show 'improvement' while behind your back she is burying her affair deeper to hide it from you. Don't ask her to end the affair. End it yourself, firmly. Print out all the emails and put them in a safe place. Email the wife a copy of all the emails between your W and her H, or at the very least print them out and mail them through her through the post. DO NOT let your W know you are doing this. The sh*t will hit the fan hard, so be prepared. She will be incandescently angry - she is in a state of mind now where she has convinced herself that she has found "true love" and her husband is standing squarely in her way as an obstacle to that "love". It is horrible for BS's to hear, but that is how people in affairs think. Some call it the "fog".

 

How to deal with the 'violation of privacy' that she will inevitably throw at you? REFUSE TO LET HER DO SO. Here is an example:

 

Her: I can't believe you would violate my privacy.

You: This isn't about your privacy. This is about your affair and the effect it has had on our family.

Her: Yes it is about my privacy - why do you think I had the affair! You pushed me into it!

You: This isn't about your privacy, or about me violating your privacy - this is about you, and the affair you had and the effect it has had on our family.

 

Pretty much, no matter what she says, how she says it - or at what volume or degree of anger: keep repeating that "this is about you and your affair". Do not address or argue over anything else she says or tries to blame you for. Let her know that you will bring this up in counseling, and drop the issue. You have things you need to say, but until your wife is in a state of mind to actually hear them, nothing you say will make any difference. Let your counseling take a direction that will prepare her for really wanting to listen to what you have to say. Right now, she will be nothing but angry with you, and her own guilt and anger will overshadow anything you have to say. When you go to your next session, hand the therapist your copies of the emails and let him know that you and your wife need help working this through.

 

Don't kick her out and change the locks just yet. Give her a chance to work through this in therapy. If she refuses, then you are left with a hard choice: stay with your wife in this uneasy arrangement (in which she will continue to have affairs since she would be choosing not to work on what made her choose to have an affair), or divorce her.

[TMCM]

How to deal with the 'violation of privacy' that she will inevitably throw at you? REFUSE TO LET HER DO SO. Here is an example:

 

Her: I can't believe you would violate my privacy.

You: This isn't about your privacy. This is about your affair and the effect it has had on our family.

Her: Yes it is about my privacy - why do you think I had the affair! You pushed me into it!

You: This isn't about your privacy, or about me violating your privacy - this is about you, and the affair you had and the effect it has had on our family.

 

Pretty much, no matter what she says, how she says it - or at what volume or degree of anger: keep repeating that "this is about you and your affair"

 

This is excellent advice and you'd be very wise to follow it for you don't know how many times an unfaithful spouse tries this and is successful in turning it around and putting the betrayed spouse on the defensive. Don't allow this to happen to you.

 

I would also like to urge you to not allow your ego to get the best of you and do something stupid like physically engaging her if she goads you by trying to push you or slap you and instead get out of the house before there is further escalation. Too many good, faithful H have been arrested, and legally thrown out of their homes with a restraining order all because they allowed themselves to be provoked by their unfaithful W. Don't become another statistic.

 

TMCM

[Ladyjane14]

I know Exposure is much more difficult, the longer you wait to do it. However, I would NEVER give information regarding my marriage to someone else before first giving it to my spouse. Maybe, it's just me, but it seems to be a betrayal of sorts.

 

While I recognize that Amillion's wife was the first to "betray" the vows of her marriage....two wrong's don't make a right. And fire is best fought with WATER, not more fire.

 

He doesn't have to elicit her permission in order to 'out' the OM. He can simply tell her in no uncertain terms that he WILL be letting the OM's wife know that her husband is unfaithful.

 

Or, he can use this information in the form of an ultimatum. i.e. "If No Contact is broken, I'll be giving this information to OM's wife." (Sounds a bit too much like emotional blackmail for my taste, but it exists as a possibility. )

 

This decision could be made jointly by Amillion and his wife together....as their first accord in an effort to salvage the marriage.

 

Just a thought.

[amillion11]

Wow, those were some quick responses. Thanks for getting back to me so fast, TMCM, ILF and LB. And thanks for your great advice. You've given me some stuff to think about. Let me tell you why I wasn't going to tell his wife first and why I worded the note the way I did. There were several reasons.

 

I did some research on this stuff and found a couple of experts who say that it's probably best if I didn't tell his wife. It may hurt her in unexpected ways. She may not want to know about it. There was some other stuff like that. I don't remember every point they made, but it was fairly sound reasoning. I'm not 100% committed to *not* telling her, but that was one of the reasons why I didn't start with her. (I'm almost positive I have her work phone and e-mail, and I definitely have their home phone number so I can contact her pretty easily.)

 

That advice was also part of the reason why I put the stuff in my note to them telling my wife to tell him to come clean. Another reason is because I'm betting it will make him withdraw so far that he'll probably never talk to my wife again. He doesn't want to be exposed and I'm giving him a way to slink away quietly. Another reason is because this is my opportunity to make him look like the pathetic weasel that he is. I'm minimizing him in my wife's eyes while I team the two of us together against him (it kind of gives her an "out" while it knocks him out of the picture). I wanted to set that image of him as a liar who was deliberately doing harm to our family and his in her mind without actually calling him a liar, because she thinks he's pretty special right now and reality is going to be a gutpunch to her. I also want her to come to that conclusion on her own (with a little prodding from me). Whether or not she does will be a reflection on her character and her desire to stay with me. It might be useful in therapy too.

 

I do think my wife will end it if I expose him to her...but maybe I'm just naive. She prides herself on her churchy ways. I think it'll tear her up to know that I know she lied to me. It'll also demolish her opinion of him to think he was lying to her the whole time. But maybe not...let me know if this is flawed thinking. I don't really have any insights into the minds of people who cheat, which is why I'm asking.

 

Let me know what you think about that stuff. It's just my line of thinking and I am considering what you guys said...because I wasn't before.

 

Thanks again for your help. Anybody who has anything else to add will really do me a world of good. I look forward to hearing from you.

 

 

 

Oh yeah...I definitely won't let her get away with the "privacy" argument. Your example is dead on, LB. I'm going to keep turning it back on her and what she's done is she tries to deflect to focus.

[amillion11]

Originally posted by Ladyjane14 This decision could be made jointly by Amillion and his wife together....as their first accord in an effort to salvage the marriage.

 

 

Thanks, LJ. I might try to talk to her about doing that. My idea was to have her join together with me to drive him away as you'll see in my other reply (you posted right before I did...thanks for your input).

 

Still mulling all options. Thanks to everybody.

[LucreziaBorgia]

I'm going to keep turning it back on her and what she's done is she tries to deflect to focus.

 

 

Just remember: calm voice, even tone, don't raise your voice or speak to fast - you want to be the one to be in control (or at least appear to be). As soon as you lose control or address the issue or try to defend yourself, you're done for in that particular argument. She will immediately latch on to and react to that instead of what you are trying to say. She will look for anything to be angry with you and lash out at you - and if she can't find it, she will bait you. If you keep it calm like this, she has nothing - nothing. All she has to be angry with is her own deeds spelled out to her, from your mouth in a deadly calm. Keep it firmly focused. Firmly and calmly.

 

If it gets to the point where she starts pushing buttons and you feel yourself losing your control, just say one last time "this is about you and your affair, and you have pushed this conversation to a point where it is pointless to have - when you are ready to speak to me rationally about this, let me know. Otherwise this conversation is over."

[Ladyjane14]

Originally posted by LucreziaBorgia

Just remember: calm voice, even tone, don't raise your voice or speak to fast - you want to be the one to be in control (or at least appear to be). As soon as you lose control or address the issue or try to defend yourself, you're done for in that particular argument. She will immediately latch on to and react to that instead of what you are trying to say. She will look for anything to be angry with you and lash out at you - and if she can't find it, she will bait you. If you keep it calm like this, she has nothing - nothing. All she has to be angry with is her own deeds spelled out to her, from your mouth in a deadly calm. Keep it firmly focused. Firmly and calmly.

 

If it gets to the point where she starts pushing buttons and you feel yourself losing your control, just say one last time "this is about you and your affair, and you have pushed this conversation to a point where it is pointless to have - when you are ready to speak to me rationally about this, let me know. Otherwise this conversation is over."

 

100% agreement. Don't allow yourself to be dragged into conflict on your initial confrontation.

[amillion11]

Originally posted by LucreziaBorgia

Just remember: calm voice, even tone, don't raise your voice or speak to fast - you want to be the one to be in control (or at least appear to be). As soon as you lose control or address the issue or try to defend yourself, you're done for in that particular argument. She will immediately latch on to and react to that instead of what you are trying to say. She will look for anything to be angry with you and lash out at you - and if she can't find it, she will bait you. If you keep it calm like this, she has nothing - nothing. All she has to be angry with is her own deeds spelled out to her, from your mouth in a deadly calm. Keep it firmly focused. Firmly and calmly.

 

If it gets to the point where she starts pushing buttons and you feel yourself losing your control, just say one last time "this is about you and your affair, and you have pushed this conversation to a point where it is pointless to have - when you are ready to speak to me rationally about this, let me know. Otherwise this conversation is over."

 

 

Thanks. She knows how to push my buttons and always gets me distracted on side issues. We've been married 11 years, but it wasn't until about 3 months ago that I realized she never answers the questions I ask her...it's always some other response to a different question. She's gotten away with that crap for years and actually had me and our therapist convinced that I have anger problems with our relationship. I don't have anger problems with our relationship...I have frustration problems with her deflectionary tactics. But she could always get me going and then shame me for yelling...and then tattle to our therapist that I'm a yelling brute. Not so much any more.

 

Thanks again.

 

 

I've got to go mow the lawn before she gets back (she's at church feeling pious about the fact that I'm not there). I'll check back in later this afternoon if I get a chance.

[TMCM]

The problem I see with you giving both of them advance notice before his W, is that they will probably use it to drive their affair deeper underground where it is going to be very difficult for you to find out if they are still in touch with one another. Furthermore, the OM may create a story for his W in that he is being harassed by a crazy woman [your W] and her equally crazy H, and by the time you decide to inform her of their affair, she will have shut her mind to your evidence.

 

I did some research on this stuff and found a couple of experts who say that it's probably best if I didn't tell his wife. It may hurt her in unexpected ways. She may not want to know about it.

 

Forgive me for saying this but this is horse manure. The damage has already been done except that she does not know the details. His change of behavior for the worse has already been felt by her and a wall has been erected that prevents the two of them from sharing their deepest thoughts and feelings [intimacy]. Besides, she has every right to know what is happening in her marriage and if her H is endangering her life and that of their children by getting involved with potentially unstable and disease ridden women, then her right to know becomes even greater. By keeping silent, you become a co-conspirator of their affair. Remember that evil can only prosper if good people do nothing to stop it.

 

TMCM

[amillion11]

My thinking with not telling his wife was that it was my only bargaining chip against him. I figured I could use the "decency" gambit to get my wife working with me to drive him out of our relationship. Thus, we'd almost automatically start working together.

 

You have a good point. I could contact his wife and tell all. And I can still use my tactic to tell my wife to tell him to tell her to come clean about ANY OTHER cheating he's doing. We'd still be working together and all that, but his wife would know.

 

I'm going to redo the letter to reflect that and then run both versions past our marriage counselor to see what she thinks I should do.

 

 

Many thanks again to everybody. I gotta fly (she's home).

[Owl]

Thought I'd post a link to my story...somewhat similar to yours in 'how' things took place...and it's ended up in a happy ending.

 

My wife and I are still together, and things are going well. I agree with the advice you've been given on exposing by others here...you need to take steps to END the affair. And you need to ensure that your wife learns that she's going to have to rebuild your trust too...that means no more hiding things!

 

http://www.loveshack.org/forums/t49539/

[amillion11]

Thanks, Owl, and everybody else again.

 

I actually looked at a portion of your story when I was reading up on this stuff. I took pointers from a lot of sources...and I'm still mulling exactly what I intend to do.

 

Right now, I'm thinking I need to run my options past our marriage counselor. I want to put an absolutely/positively end to it, but I also want to stay with her (about 75% at least--still pretty pissed). If I come out swinging too hard, she's the type who'll just quit. She says she hates to be told what to do...but I think that's at least partly due to the strained nature of our relationship as much as it is her hard-headed ways.

 

I'm still monitoring her e-mails when I can. She doesn't know and doesn't permanently delete anything that I can see, so I'll know when/if things change in any way.

 

One problem I will face is that I probably can't put a keystroke application on her computer. The original reason we bought it was for her job and there is information about clients on it. I guess that makes it all the more important that I put a once-and-for-all end to it.

 

I'm taking it a little slower at this point (I was very much ready to take action this weekend when I posted for the first time). I want to get a plan in place that's more solid and/or better supported by people who can help us work through things when I do act.

 

 

Thanks again to everybody.