How did you find out [about a partner's/spouse's affair]?

[loversquarrel]

I remember one morning I was getting ready for work. I heard a slight vibration coming from her pocketbook and upon further examination discovered several texts had been sent to her from the previous night.Then curiosity got the best of me and I checked the messages asking her when they could meet along with several x-rated pictures of his dick. I was in shock, but funny thing is she had been exercising lately and talking to me about needing to get away for a trip earlier that week. I took the phone with me up to our bedroom and threw it at her and asked what was going on. She just looked so baffled. I eventually grew resentful towards her during our period of reconciliation and ended up having a revenge fair. It was almost comical to see the look on her face as if she had been the victim in all of this. The best thing about being caught on my end was her being served papers the same day. I couldn't have planned it any better. Before you look to cause physical harm, remember emotional harm is far more damaging, especially when inflicted on a narcissistic personality.

[GoldenR]

Some backstory....my (now ex-) wife's work had relocated about 45 miles away, making the commute about an hour each way. When she was notified of this, I told her that there was no way she could keep that job, as we only had one car, and our work schedules were timed just right where I got home in time for her to leave, so there was no way her new travel time to work would work for us. Getting a new job would be easy for her, but she still seemed very stressed about this. I chalked it up to just being nervous about starting somewhere new.

 

A few days later she came home from work and said that her friend that she works with would give her a ride there and back, however, she'd have to sleep at said friend's house Sunday night thru Thursday night, and not come home until the weekend. Her friend lived about 30 mins away from us, and the trip for her friend to pick her up before work would be over an hour, that was the reason for sleeping there. She said this would give her time to find a really good job and she wouldn't be rushed and settle. I told her this was a horrible situation for our home life and she needed to hurry and find a job.

 

About two months later (she still hasn't found a new job) I was on our home computer doing some work. I started getting pop up notifications that my wife's online accounts email address were all being changed to a new one (jcpenney, Mervyns, best buy, etc). (She never wanted her own email address, so she just shared mine.). They were being changed to the name of a male coworker of hers email address. It was basically "[email protected]". I knew him. Had met him at work parties, one of which was at his house. I was confused for like 10 seconds. Then I got pissed. My daughter saw these emails as well, and she figured it out after about 5 minutes as she knew the OM as well.

 

I knew where he lived, so we drove over there, like 5 minutes away from our house. There was no car, so we staked out the house from a little ways away. After about 30 minutes, his car pulls up. They both get out, hold hands and walk in.

 

I went home and packed everything that was hers into over 30 giant black plastic yard bags. And I mean EVERYTHING: all of her clothes, shoes, jewelry, jewelry box, mirrors, books, CDs, movies, ANYTHING that was considered only hers got packed. We took everything over there (6 trips) and put it onto his front porch in front of his door. When they walked out in the morning, OM fell into the pile and hurt his head. She fell on top of him. Lol. I found that out much later after she told our daughters and they told me.

 

She called me all hysterical. I told her to not come home and hung up. She never even tried to come home, never even contested custody of our 2 girls.

 

She's still a bitch to this day.

Edited February 4, 2018 by GoldenR

[wmacbride]

Some backstory....my (now ex-) wife's work had relocated about 45 miles away, making the commute about an hour each way. When she was notified of this, I told her that there was no way she could keep that job, as we only had one car, and our work schedules were timed just right where I got home in time for her to leave, so there was no way her new travel time to work would work for us. Getting a new job would be easy for her, but she still seemed very stressed about this. I chalked it up to just being nervous about starting somewhere new.

 

A few days later she came home from work and said that her friend that she works with would give her a ride there and back, however, she'd have to sleep at said friend's house Sunday night thru Thursday night, and not come home until the weekend. Her friend lived about 30 mins away from us, and the trip for her friend to pick her up before work would be over an hour, that was the reason for sleeping there. She said this would give her time to find a really good job and she wouldn't be rushed and settle. I told her this was a horrible situation for our home life and she needed to hurry and find a job.

 

About two months later (she still hasn't found a new job) I was on our home computer doing some work. I started getting pop up notifications that my wife's online accounts email address were all being changed to a new one (jcpenney, Mervyns, best buy, etc). (She never wanted her own email address, so she just shared mine.). They were being changed to the name of a male coworker of hers email address. It was basically "[email protected]". I knew him. Had met him at work parties, one of which was at his house. I was confused for like 10 seconds. Then I got pissed. My daughter saw these emails as well, and she figured it out after about 5 minutes as she knew the OM as well.

 

I knew where he lived, so we drove over there, like 5 minutes away from our house. There was no car, so we staked out the house from a little ways away. After about 30 minutes, his car pulls up. They both get out, hold hands and walk in.

 

I went home and packed everything that was hers into over 30 giant black plastic yard bags. And I mean EVERYTHING: all of her clothes, shoes, jewelry, jewelry box, mirrors, books, CDs, movies, ANYTHING that was considered only hers got packed. We took everything over there (6 trips) and put it onto his front porch in front of his door. When they walked out in the morning, OM fell into the pile and hurt his head. She fell on top of him. Lol. I found that out much later after she told our daughters and they told me.

 

She called me all hysterical. I told her to not come home and hung up. She never even tried to come home, never even contested custody of our 2 girls.

 

She's still a bitch to this day.

 

I don't understand how a mother can do this to her children. That's just so sad.

[Floveet]

Oh there are some stories here.

It always hard to find yourself getting cheated on, but let's be honest. When you heal, and think about it years later, it's kinda funny...

 

On my side, things have been easier to handle.

 

2 years relationship, was on a Business trip for few days and knew that my GF was hanging around with a guy that wanted her.

I told her many times to be careful as I could feel there were something odd.

Anyhow, a friend that owned a restaurant told me there were there having a nice date and he wanted to let me know.

 

When I came back home after the trip, I instantly wanted to check her phone to verify. (Password changed), so waited patiently for her to tap it, wait for her to sleep and get it over with.

Instinct + Proofs from friend were right, she did cheated.

I did not say anything, left for Thailand to have some fun with girls and friends living there, came back and dumped her telling her I didn't love her anymore. She never knew what hit her and never will. So that she can keep the guilt for herself.

I got lucky she left the apartment we shared, took the whole rent on my own as I knew she couldn't do that as she was already paying less than me.

 

What concerned me was the fact that I helped her grow up, get better, change, be confident and she just fcked it up. It feels as if she took everything she needed ... and more.

 

To this day, I know that she is doing good with her career but still didn't find anyone serious.

[Cephalopod]

I did not say anything, left for Thailand to have some fun with girls and friends living there, came back and dumped her telling her I didn't love her anymore. She never knew what hit her and never will. So that she can keep the guilt for herself.

 

 

 

.....

 

 

 

To this day, I know that she is doing good with her career but still didn't find anyone serious.

 

 

 

And you will always be the "one who got away" and she will spend the rest of her life wondering what she did wrong, never acknowledging the possibility that you found out she was a cheater.

[Greg_1963]

I had no idea (even though when I read back on my old posts from 5 years ago, there was probably evidence there).

 

Couple of years ago, I noticed the phone bill was going over its data usage. I decided to dig deep online and pulled up the bill and found out why - my teen kids were streaming Spotify.

 

As God is my witness, I was moving the mouse over to the top X to close out the window of the phone bill when I noticed this one particular number being texted constantly. Naturally, since I was on the kids part of the phone bill I assumed is was her texting a friend. Then I noticed it was on a column of my wife's number, not my kid. I still didn't think anything of it until I went over the bill and saw it thousands of times. I googled it and it was a male personal trainer at her work. My heart sank, I pulled months worth of bills and saw them exchanging thousands upon thousands of texts and pictures.

 

I printed everything out and when she came home, I sat her down and told her and showed her the phone bill. She went pale white. Said she was sorry. I told her to leave. (A back story here, she was always the strong one and never backed down from anything). She said, "lets talk". I got in her face and said, "you need to leave now".

 

This scared her. She left to live with a friend for 2 weeks while we figured out what to do.

 

2 years later, after horrid marriage counseling and terrible IC on my end, we're still together. Things are much better. That old marriage died and a new one was born. We try not to talk about it now because what little I *did* find out traumatized me. I can't have details. I have severe PTSD from this whole thing, but my new IC (who rules) assured me that a couple of more years down the road and I should be better.

 

I love my wife and like where the marriage is now, but hate how it took her affair to finally realize what we needed to do to work on our marriage and make it better.

[merrmeade]

I had no idea (even though when I read back on my old posts from 5 years ago, there was probably evidence there).

————

2 years later, after horrid marriage counseling and terrible IC on my end, we're still together. Things are much better. That old marriage died and a new one was born. We try not to talk about it now because what little I *did* find out traumatized me. I can't have details. I have severe PTSD from this whole thing, but my new IC (who rules) assured me that a couple of more years down the road and I should be better.

 

I love my wife and like where the marriage is now, but hate how it took her affair to finally realize what we needed to do to work on our marriage and make it better.

So I’d like to ask you, Greg, ...

1) Do you think the affair with the same person could’ve been going on five years or more?

2) Whose idea was it that ...

a) you have severe PTSD from finding out the details of her affair?

b) you and your wife should “try not to talk about it now”?

3) how was your wife about ‘talking about it’ before? Does she really have to “try” or is she relieved not to avoid the subject?

[merrmeade]

I meant is she relieved not to have to talk about it?

 

ETA:

 

I'm asking because I think hearing about the impact of finding out is part of the "How did you find out?" discussion and, therefore, the long-term impact question is a logical extension of that—e.g.: How did finding out that way mess you up and for how long? Is it the most significant factor in how big of an impact s/he feels and for how long?

Edited February 13, 2018 by a LoveShack.org Moderator

[Veronica73]

Had she never seen what information is listed on a phone bill before??

[Greg_1963]

I meant is she relieved not to have to talk about it?

 

ETA:

 

I'm asking because I think hearing about the impact of finding out is part of the "How did you find out?" discussion and, therefore, the long-term impact question is a logical extension of that—e.g.: How did finding out that way mess you up and for how long? Is it the most significant factor in how big of an impact s/he feels and for how long?

 

I'll try to answer both your posts here.

 

Whose idea was it that I had PTSD? My new therapist.

 

Whose idea was it that we shouldn't talk about it? Our MC. She point blank said on our first visit, "I believe in not focusing on what happened, only on focusing from here on now on what you can do to improve your marriage".

Whenever I would bring something up that bothered me, such as the fact that my W and OM still worked together, I was told point blank that "rehashing this issue will only destroy your marriage".

 

Now, is she relieved to not wanna talk about it? Oh yeah. Her initial reaction was "yup, I messed up, I went to therapy, I'm better now, if you can't get over it, then we're done". And she would do just that, tell me we're done, she's not going to live with me throwing this constantly in her face, etc. That's when her own IC got on her about having to feel the painful emotions and working through them, not avoiding them. That's what got her in trouble in the first place.

[Greg_1963]

Had she never seen what information is listed on a phone bill before??

 

No. Our phone bill was always mailed to us as a one page statement. The online phone bill had everything detailed.

[BluesPower]

 

I believe in not focusing on what happened, only on focusing from here on now on what you can do to improve your marriage".

 

Yeah you got played... this is the same BS that many MC's try to say because they all drink the same Koolaid...

 

This is the most wrong thing that any MC can say or believe. It does damage to the couple and has ended more marriages than infidelity itself.

 

No wonder you have PTSD. You never worked through the trauma of your wife's infidelity.

 

Of course she is happy, she get to act like a hero taking care of her poor sick husband who is dealing with the trauma that she caused by screwing around on him.

 

My brother, you have been played by your wife, and by the pop phycology world that exists today.

 

She gets off the hook and you are the one with issues. If you would have divorced her right off you would not have PTSD.

 

Sorry buddy, do I fell sorry for you...