advice please

[CW2017]

Hi all
First of all apologies to 25yearsmlc for not replying sooner. I have been thinking a lot on her points. I will certainly not post again in future without thinking things through first. In essence I am trying to behave more like the person who swept her off her feet 27 years ago without appearing too overattentive (I appreciate she is still in the positive mirroring/fog phase with the OM so this is a long game, I am desperate to keep her unless she wants out of course). Although not a macho type I am also consciously trying to be seen as taking the lead in most matters now as I might have subconsciously let this slip over the fast few years (possibly). My wife has always been a “wearing the trousers” type, I think this is OK within reason as this is personality based, she knows not to push me too far, so I can only assume I am not part of her thinking much at the moment, for whatever reasons are behind this affair, hopefully I’ll find out one day.

On the subject of what would my wife say if she was here, this is a tough one. She clearly plays her cards close to her chest which I guess is why firstly I was not aware of any dissatisfaction on her part with the marriage which in turn led to zero discussion about this. On all other fronts we are very good communicators (and of course recently I have made a point of us having a 20 minute + discussion about how the working day went that day, etc. every evening). She also has a great poker face which doesn’t help either in trying to work out what’s going on in her head. As I think she is leading a dual existence (for her own selfish reasons, her personality can best be described as a combination of selfish –not necessarily always in a negative manner- and high maintenance) it would be very hard to get her to open up. There may well be the possibility that resentment has built up over the years but there has been no obvious trigger for this, yet there have been times I have noticed a lack of genuine affection (this has not been the case since our “half truths” confrontations earlier this year where things have never been better, although again her positive reciprocation could be for a ton of reasons).

So in an ideal world I would like a “final” confrontation sooner rather than later (I certainly am not sitting around assuming the affair will fizzle out or that her Mother is the one thing keeping her here, as has been suggested). I will need a trigger for this as I am “not supposed to know anything”. Maybe something as trivial as she said his name in his sleep for the umpteenth time the previous night, or whatever. I am seeing a lawyer in two weeks time, not to file or anything but more to get an idea of tactics as I will need to have every possibility locked and loaded in my mind to allow for any twist and turn the confrontation conversation might head. There are certain aspects of UK law which are clearly different but also, depressingly, a lot of it is shared with the US. For example, when I was at home looking for work for 5 years I could be viewed as being the primary carer for my daughter (my wife went back to work a year after the birth) when she wasn’t attending kindergarten. However, one tactic that tends to be recommended to force an affair out into the open, i.e. threaten to leave (and with the intention of doing it as well) is a big nono over here as this will be taken into account at any family court and would almost certainly guarantee me never setting foot in my house again after the divorce, as my wife would be allowed to stay there whilst looking for somewhere to live and only then would the house be sold. So I will also not be able to use my body of cellphone text based evidence as (a) this might backfire with her if I present it to her, (b) in the UK a family court judge “may” take a dim view of intercepted texts/emails and may even deem it illegal which will, of course count against me in any judgement.

Will have to find DB/DR on a UK second hand book site (an electronic version would of course be “safer” in terms of delivery!).

Thank you all once again