My wife is having affair with a mutual friend

[adinva]

I would like to suggest that you stop lying. Snooping, tape recording her, and lying about it is not making you look good or feel good. You might want to consult with a lawyer to determine if having proof of adultery makes a whit of difference in a divorce in your state; I was surprised to find it makes no material difference in mine or many others. Other than that, your snooping does nothing good. Your marriage was in trouble before you snooped and you knew it because you came here. Helping OM move and pretending you're all friends, and telling W nothing is wrong are not working in your favor. You don't have to say anything, so you don't have to lie. Just because W asks you something point blank you don't have to say something you're not ready to discuss, and you don't have to lie in order to avoid talking about it. Personally, I'm not a fan of lying; it hurts your self respect.

So, you said that masking your feelings and acting as if nothing's wrong when you're with W and OM is hard and painful because you feel hurt and angry. This is where DB comes in handy in two ways. One is taking charge of your life. You don't have to be with W and OM and you should not; it's artificial friendliness you don't feel and you can get busy doing other things if you're not ready to tell W that you won't spend time with the man with whom she is committing adultery. GAL = get a life. Get to the gym, make some new friends who think you are awesome, start doing interesting things all on your own to heal your self esteem and turn around some of the boring, phoning-it-in, lazy behavior that you may have slipped into as a longtime husband. Start looking interesting, active, and not sitting around pining for your W.

Two is battling your hurt and anger with a healthy dose of self-examination. You took your marriage for granted and let it slide into disrepair, and when that happens spouses stray. If you're not ready yet to have a conversation with W apologizing for letting her down, then at least start getting to work finding out what you should have and could have been doing different to maintain your relationship. Read DR, and maybe the 5 Love Languages. Get out of victim mode, and recognize that you've just had the most effective and most horrible wake-up call possible for personal growth.

You've asked your W to admit to her affair and she chose to lie about it. DB is not in favor of confronting and exposing an affair but rather working on the faults that led to the breakdown in your marriage, backing way off from your W and working on being a man only a fool would leave.