SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

My WW (we are both 36) had been acting differently and frequently would stay home while I went to family and friend events solo.

Suspicious in late June, I put an old cellphone with a voice recorder app in the house before I left.

I caught a facetime video call between her and her AP talking about meeting up the following friday, talking explicitly about sex, denigrating me, and clearly getting off together during the chat.

The audio quality wasn't very good, but I used Audacity to reduce noise and isolate the vocals and now I'm 100% certain that an affair has been in progress for quite some time.

In early July we stayed at a beach house an hour from home. On the 2nd to last day, I and the rest of our friends decided to take an evening walk to the beach to watch the sunset, but my wife decided to stay back at the last second. I hid the extra cell phone in the beach house. I heard her let someone in, immediately heard sex noises, and the voice of the AP. He must have driven out and waited until we were all out of the house.

I stupidly confronted my wife after we got home from the trip. I showed her some small parts but she refused to listen to much saying the audio quality is so bad that you can't tell whats going on (its not that bad, and voices come through fairly clearly. Also, beside that poiny, she is clearly talking to SOMEONE male in the house while we weren't there, but she denied it anyway.

She denied denied denied. I know for sure an affair is happening,l. I love my wife with all my heart and would reconcile, especially if its just sexual and not emotional. But I am in this depressed limbo...looking for ways to catch her in the act with better evidence so she can no longer deny it.

Ive checked her phone, but she works in IT and has the know how to obfuscate any evidence I might find, so I haven't found any evidence there.

Im depressed, stuck in a loop of denial and pain, and all I want is for her to admit to it so we can move on rebuilding our marriage.

I got a home camera system, but I only told her I got 2 cameras with it, although it came with 3. In her facetime call, they mentioned doing "it" in our garage, where no cameras would see if she let AP in through the garage door. However, I hid the third camera in the garage to catch her there if anything should happen.

I don't know what else to do... I feel so mixed up and confused, just waiting for better evidence so she can no longer deny. I don't want to leave her, but I'm afraid that'll be my only choice if she refuses to come clean or if I can't get irrefutable evidence.

I dont know why im posting... I guess im just sad and confused and hoping for advice. Please help me.

Sadly, I don’t think you have anything to work with. She is trying to gaslight you. This behavior is so off the charts. You can’t MAKE her behave. You can’t make her love you.
Suggestions:
Get tested.
See a dr for anxiety and depression meds
Talk to a lawyer.
Stop trying to catch her. You already have enough info
Be realistic about what you already know.
No alcohol
Try to eat healthy foods or get liquid high protein drinks
Try to get enough sleep. You might need meds for that.

I am so sorry this has happened to you.

Why do you need physical evidence to show her?

F that!

You know she's cheating. She knows you know. Her denial is horseshit...again, you know it and she knows it.

To save your marriage you have to be willing to lose it.

For for D. Tell her she has until the D is final to convince you to withdraw it. Tell her that anyone that asks, you'll let them hear the recordings.

If she does nothing then you've moved on with your life without the dead weight as soon as possible.

You have already got good advice and you will get more. Your wife is a typical cheater. They are liars and deceivers by nature. She is clearly gaslighting you and she will be more careful in the future.
There is no rush to make a decision. Give yourself time to process this. You know what is going on. You do not need to prove anything. My guess is if you are able to provide irrefutable proof, she will go from denying it to blaming you.
Start disentangling your lives now. Start planning for a life without her. She has to know you are serious. Do not offer reconciliation until her actions show she is committed 100% to supporting you and your healing. She has a mountain of work to do to become a safe partner.
Both paths forward involve a lot of pain. You have to figure out which one will get you out of infidelity and into a happy life in the future.
Keep posting. You will get great support.

Very sorry you find the need to be here. Read the pinned threads and the healing library. This is a time to take care of you. Get tested for STDs. Secure your finances. See an attorney to learn your rights.

Don't argue with your WW. You know she is cheating. This is a time to value yourself and be firm in your actions. Don't beg or plead. It makes you look weak. You didn't cause her to cheat and you can't force her to want your M. You deserve a faithful partner. Implement the 180. Stop doing things for her. No laundry or cooking. No idle chit chat. This is to give you space to get your bearings, not to manipulate her. Give her notice that if she does not end her A you will D. If her AP is married inform his wife. This is a time for firmness and resolve. Always value yourself. Good luck.

You know she's cheating. She knows as well. You don't have to prove it.

Act accordingly. 180. See an attorney. Maybe hire a PI.

Bringing him into the house is something many cheaters won't do. It's extremely risky. It is also the ultimate disrespect.

Get tested for stds. Stop having sex with her.

I agree with other posters here Jmcosmos -
You already know what you need to know to be certain there is an affair going on. Her denial is irrelevant. You don't need to prove to her that she's having an affair. She already knows.

Additional evidence won't increase her desire to be accountable.
Gathering evidence becomes habit-forming very fast and is not remotely productive beyond the stage you've already taken it to.
You'll get wrapped around the axles of trying to know EVERYTHING before making a decision for your own well-being and you'll set yourself back indefinitely.

Cooley2here's list of self care steps is awesome.
Choose sanity and start there.

Sorry to hear you are going through this. I wish you had seen my original post before confronting your wife, as I jumped too early and gave her time to cover any tracks that may have existed. Seems you did get some real proof though.

Lots of good advice on this forum.

Hi, JM:

Fellow BS, here. Like others have said, you already have enough information to prove she is cheating, and she knows she is cheating. See a D lawyer, or 3, start the D process. No sex with her. Get tested. Find out who the AP is and inform his wife / GF, if there is one. That is the quickest way to stop an A.

Is the AP a co-worker? Most companies have policies against dating other employees. If you convey this dating, both could be fired. For now, IF the AP is a co-worker, keep that under wraps. You want to get as much alimony as possible from her (Yes, that’s possible). You will get more if she’s working and making a good salary.

You need to talk to people, if for no other reason than to "get it all out." That is healthy. Make a time to talk with a family member or two with the goal of telling them what you know and showing them the video with enhanced audio. When this goes public, your WW will try to make you the "bad guy", saying crap like, "He didn’t support me enough", "He wasn’t there for me", "He was bad in bed." Who knows what she’ll say, but if you have already prepared your closest family members, you will get support from them and they will (most likely) see her for what she is.

Don’t offer R. I suggest you not offer it at all. IF your WW is interested in fixing the relationship, she will come to you and tell you she wants to stay. At that point, IF she addresses the issue, you can lay down your expectations and make a plan. You can stop a D at any time, but it does put a deadline in front of her to make her decision by a certain time.

Post here often and keep us updated. We are here for you and will listen, even if you just want to vent.

Basically what the others are saying. If evidence of infidelity impacts divorce in your jurisdiction or if you want to identify her AP for safety and other reasons hire a PI. Your divorce lawyer should be able to recommend one.

As she is active in her affair you have only one path out of infidelity. Check out the simplified 180 in the healing library here. Start untangling finances. Open accounts in your name only and prepare to move half of the marital funds and your direct deposit once your attorney clears it.

Do not do the pick me dance. The only prize for "winning" is an unremorseful cheater who will stray again.

In short, start moving forward out of infidelity. If your wayward wife should pull her head out of her ass and start to follow then you can decide if reconciliation is a possibility. Currently her actions leave you no choice.

Infidelity isn’t like a court of law where you have to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt. What you have discovered is enough to end the marriage. You might depending on the jurisdiction to gather more evidence if it is needed for a divorce settlement, but what you have with the tapes is probably enough. Also through depositions more truth will come out.

She is disrespecting you and you should start talking to a lawyer right now. She is not deserving of anything else. She has no intention of stopping. Also, by having sex in your house and probably bed is disgraceful. You will be better off without her

First, I am so sorry that you are here. There is a lot of help for you in the healing library. Please go through it. Second, a story. Third, my advice.

The story:

My WH was having an A with a co-worker that had been ongoing for over a year. I recorded a call between AP and my WH (excellent sound quality - no way to deny anything and he did not) and he ended the A. 3 months later for reasons I don't fully understand (or care about at this point) the A restarted. My WH works very near our house and to enter his workplace you need a govt security clearance and the facility is surrounding by fencing, a gate, etc. Basically there is no way I can get in there and there is only one small area with picnic tables that is visible/near the road as the fencing is chain link there as opposed to solid. The A was (and had) largely taken place there at his work where there was no chance I would see them together but for that little chain link area. I drive by WH's work all the time as it is enroute to my bank. So one day I am driving to the bank when WH has sworn the A is over and done with and that he hasn't spoken to AP aside from when he has to at work when they change shifts, and who do I see but WH and AP sitting on the bench talking and laughing. They don't see me, but I am furious and pull over immediately like a block away and message him that he is a liar, I see he is sitting with her on the bench, and so on and he denies it, and tells me it was not AP but someone else and I am overreacting and being a "bitch." Like I am blind.

This can happen. Do not let it make you crazy. You're not. In my case I called the person WH claimed he was sitting with and asked them point blank if he was sitting with them and they said "No, he was out there with AP." I was not crazy. You're not crazy either. My WH and your WS are liars. That's the beginning and end of it.

To the extent you want/need hard and fast proof you can hire a PI or if you can't afford that you can do a few other things such as set her up. It sounds like your WS is similar to mine in that they are looking for opportunities to see the AP, so let them. Give them a perfect opportunity to do so. Set them up. It may be as simple as telling your WS that you will be away (I told my WH I was going to be about 2 hours away with a friend) and make it verifiable that you indeed are away if you can (we had a find my friends app on our phones pre affair so with a click he could confirm that I was where I said I was going to be and not worry that I would walk in). Then, before you leave, set up some recording devices (you can get pretty cheap VARs - in my case I just used my laptop) or you can confide in a friend as to what is going on and have that friend take photos or simply walk up to the house (or follow her when she leaves). The cheaters will be so elated that you will be gone they will take the opportunity. It may take a few times to catch them but you will. Your WS sounds pretty sloppy with covering things up so it won't take long.

Even if you have clear proof, your cheater may not confess. They may be angry and leave you or threaten to do so, obfuscate, try to convince you that you are crazy, have a meltdown, scream, or just give you the silent treatment. I saw the AP and my WH together with my own eyes, yet like some kind of comedy skit, my WH tried to tell me I didn't see what I saw. Proof will only get you so far.

The advice:

Get better proof if you need it for YOU, but proceed like you do know, because you do. You know. I would say that if you have decided you don't need more proof than stop playing the game with her and proceed like you know. If she is not going to talk about it, is going to continue to lie about it, you have nothing to work with. In that case you can show her with your actions you have no intention of rug sweeping this - and that until you get some confirmation from her, of the A, you really don't have much to say to her.

Even if you decided to gather more proof, think about what you need to do for you. You have said you want to R, but as others have said, you can't R with your WS right now - not if you don't want the A to continue, and not if you don't want this to happen again with someone else 15 years (or whenever) from now. You need to get yourself in the mindset that you may be on your own soon. I'm NOT saying that is going to happen, but you should plan for that. If you need to separate assets - do it. If you have financial issues that need to be resolved, do so. Find out what your rights and liabilities are where you are located if you were to divorce so you can start to protect yourself. Start thinking about taking care of yourself.

I can only tell you that I wish I had taken this same advice when given to me much earlier than I did. It cost me a lot of time and money down the road.

[This message edited by ThisIsSoLonely at 10:24 PM, Wednesday, August 2nd]

You have suffered a trauma and freezing is a natural response to that. That is totally OK. Understanding that will help you move forward.

You don't need your wife to admit to what you already know. You don't need her permission or admission to get out of infidelity. She's bluffing, but she doesn't really have the power to keep you in limbo. You have the power to exit the love triangle now, right now, no matter what she does or doesn't do or say. You don't need to have a back and forth conversation with her. You don't need her to say, "You're right." You simply need to come up with a plan you can live with and then tell her what you're doing.

The first step is to reach out to a trusted friend. Get someone in your corner. Then speak to a lawyer and learn your rights and whether leaving the home is smart in this situation. If it's not, then you can institute an in-house separation.

You mention wanting to reconcile. Part of the work here is to let go of the outcome. You can't control whether she's willing to do the work or not. All you can do is remove yourself from the toxic situation she's put you in.

You weren't stupid to confront her. You're married. The *least* she can do is give you the truth about her affair when you confront her. The fact that she can't/won't is entirely a reflection on her. It was very normal and healthy for you to think you could have an honest conversation with the person you married. She's the one who is not acting in a healthy or normal way. And because of that fact, you need to stop thinking that just one more bit of evidence will convince her to come clean. There's no lie too ridiculous for her to cling to. She's made her bed, and now she needs to lie in it.

I'm sorry you find yourself here. The only thing I think I can add that I didn't read be said is to think very long and hard about setting up that video equipment in your garage. You do know. You already have the proof. If you catch them on camera having sex in your garage, is that really a video you want to see? You could NEVER unsee it. It would cause me trauma that I'm not sure I could handle and I'm sure would last forever even if we divorced or reconcilled. I'm not saying it's a bad idea if it's what you truly think you need, but for me it would be an idea that sounds good in a moment but I regretted forever. Just think long and hard before you go trying to get video evidence. That's a whole other level of pain.

How are you doing Jmcosmos?

Btw, I do think you have enough evidence but if you feel you need more to take the action necessary with your WW then go to an audio specialist and have them work with the files. They can 1) professionally corroborate the transcript so she can't tell you it's your imagination 2) potentially clean up the audio even more.

That, combined with the facts you have like staying behind alone at the house etc, should be enough to build confidence in your resolve to do the 180 and confront her gaslighting.

You’re hoping that ample evidence will compel her to stop the affair and reconcile. This is illogical. She’s not in denial, you are. She knows she’s having an affair and so do you. Unless you live in an At-fault state, you don’t need to convince anyone but yourself. Stop wasting time and file for divorce. If anything, ANYTHING is going to compel her to stop the affair and reconcile, it will be:

-The 180
-Exposure
-Informing any OBSs
-Service of Divorce Papers

AND…
-Because she generically wants to

Shock level consequences alone will not be enough to ensure genuine successful reconciliation. She has to really, REALLY want it.

As others had said, go 180 and plan to D.

I don’t comment on here much, but I just have to say you have everything you need. I wish to hell I had the evidence you have. Take it from someone who’s spent years looking for "better evidence": You have more than enough. Don’t walk, run away. This won’t get better. She won’t change. She won’t do the right thing. She chose someone else, she valued that more than she does you.

I know it doesn’t seem like it, but you’ve been given a gift. You KNOW she’s screwing around with someone else. Myself and plenty of others are positive their spouses were doing it, but don’t KNOW they did. That’s so much harder. That sliver of hope can destroy you way more than anything our spouses did. As much as it would hurt to be 100% sure, I’d take it over that stupid hope any day.

Your wife denigrates you with this man, then gets off having sex with him. She clearly has zero respect for you and gets off on it.

Question is, where is your pride not to put up with this incredible disrespect? You say you love your wife but more importantly do you love yourself?