Trying to save my M. W not really trying though.

[Thinker]

Yes, I do suspect an A. But what should I do?

Do I start spying on her to get more "evidence"? I don't want to push her further away by being an obsessed, jealous husband. I think I already made that mistake when I confronted her about the email exchange I found a couple weeks ago. She suspects that I'm snooping so she's barely using our PC...and when she does she's deleting history, etc...seems to be really covering her tracks. I don't want to be a lunatic about this & start installing keyloggers or GPS tracking devices on her car. That's just not me. But I do want to know whether or not she's involved in an A.

Hi etrain,

I was in the exact same place as you 9 months ago, and I remember having exactly those same thoughts. I was going crazy, and wanting to believe my W at the same time. My W was calling me controlling, which made me want to back off and give her space. At the same time she was being VERY secretive - changed the password on her computer and email account, deleted her history, etc.

You have a decision to make.

You can "trust" and ignore and hope for the best. If your W is not having an A this may be the way to go. On the other hand, it just may make you so suspicious and resentful that you drive her away.

Or you can decide that you have to know.

I see it this way. When spouse begins to cheat, they start trying to control their left behind spouse. Yes, I said that correctly. The wayward spouse wants to be able to do what they want (have an A), while PREVENTING the LBS from reacting to that A. To that end they will lie and do everything they can to hide the A from you because they want to keep everything stable at home while they have their A. They want to have their cake and eat it too.

They justify this by calling you controlling, and jealous, and suspicious, and unreasonable and everything else. They believe it in their own mind (cognative dissonance?), but it also does a pretty good job of putting you (the LBS) on the defensive. I know it knocked me for a loop - "Well maybe I am too controlling..."

I finally realized that I DESERVED to know the truth about what was going on and to make my own decisions about how I was going to react. I also realized that doing nothing was just destroying my M. For one, there is NO ability to work on the M during an active A, and second, "fooling" me while she was going after OM was just causing my W's respect for me to deteriorate.

The only way forward is to find out whether there is an A or not. If there is not, then good, relax and patiently focus on your M. If there is, then you need to strongly, calmly and confidently bust the A wide open.

Exposing an A will anger your W, and will harm the R between you, but not as much the continued resentment and lack of respect that the A causes.

In my sitch, I decided to know. I installed a keylogger on my W's computer. If you can't do that, there are other versions that work on the network and your home router, capturing the traffic in and out. The key logger gave me the passwords for her email and facebook accounts. When I had access to her phone (she was in the shower or something) I went to the website for her phone account (from the provider) and followed the forgotten password procedure. This texted the password to her phone - I got it and deleted the text.

Within a short period of time I had a set of incriminating emails, proof of an online Facebook relationship, and a record of multiple texts per day with OM going back months.

You deserve to know.

Once you know, however, be VERY careful. Don't react immediately. If there is an A, come here, talk it through, determine what you want to do. Your initial emotional reaction will probably be wrong. If there is an A, and you know it, we can help you work through how to react.

Keep in touch.



Note: Be forewarned. Spying on your spouse is very difficult on you, it is EXTREMELY emotionally addictive, and leads quickly to true codependent controlling behavior. If you go down this path, you have to be prepared to a) spy enough to find out what is going on and be able to expose it, then b)STOP spying again so that you can focus on yourself. Once you know that there is an A, that second part (stopping) is REALLY hard.