Wife's sexting "affair"

[sompuf]

My wife and I are high-school sweethearts who have been together for 22 years, married for 16. We have 4 daughters and what I thought was an ideallic marriage. We recently went on a trip with another couple, ended up running into an old friend of mine, who was with 2 of his friends. We all start talking and drinking together and over the course of the evening, I keep noticing that my wife and one of the other friends of my friend have worked their way off to the side, away from the rest of the group. She has done this before, and when I expressed encomfortability with it, I was made to feel like an unreasonably jealous a-hole. So, in this case, I decided to hang back. There was no touching or inappropriate physicality to the conversation, but lots of giggling, etc. I walked over and joined in a couple times and didn't feel any awkwardness, until the last time at the end of the evening, when it was obvious that I had interrupted something. Not wanting our fun getaway trip to be ruined by my reaction, I skipped commenting on it. Fast-forward 3 weeks to my grabbing her phone to look up a contact while she had her hands full and she was obviously uncomfortable with my having her phone in my hands.

 

When she fell asleep (er, um, passed out - we had been drinking), I was curious, looked at her phone and found the remnants of a sexting conversation with this guy. All previous messages had been deleted, along with the pictures that some of the remaining texts indicated had been sent. Just like others on here, I'm shocked and saddened that this happenned. I read someone who referred to the movies in their head - this rings a bell. There was no physical contact that I know of, but the inclusion of nude photos seems to escalate the significance of this beyond just dirty talk.

 

I'm obsessed with knowing the details of the exchange. She is apologetic, weepy, and mad at herself for her lapse in judgement (read: getting caught in her lapse in judgement), and insists that my reviewing the transcripts will only deepen my valley and will embarass and humiliate her even more than she already is. I've ID'd a software program that claims to be able to recover deleted texts and photos from her phone, but have been holding off for fear that she is right. She's human, and if this was nothing more than her being flattered to be pursued, then a series of bad choices, I can start to heal. But the fact that she seems evasive about the details worries me that I don't have the whole truth.

 

Any and all input would be welcomed and appreciated.

[elbe]

Why the hell would you want the details? You may never forgive her after that. You've been together for a lifetime this isn't exactly unheard of. You need to learn to forgive her, assuming she is asking for forgiveness. Don't dwell on this or you'll lose more than you already have.

[tiredofitall2]

The main thing is that you don't want something like this to ever happen again. So you must take some steps to ensure it. Is the OM married or has a GF? Get the text from the cell phone carrier. Why, because if there might be a possibility it became physical you need to know. Why? STDs! Also if she is still lying about how far if went you need to know to make a decision based on this. If you are 100% sure it was only texting, then I agree with the previous post. You can move on, but you need to find out what is lacking in your marriage and what's up with her by going to marriage counseling.

 

The texting affair is a symptom of other underlying issue in your M. Identify them in order to prevent this from happening again.

[Try]

I'm obsessed with knowing the details of the exchange. She is apologetic, weepy, and mad at herself for her lapse in judgement (read: getting caught in her lapse in judgement), and insists that my reviewing the transcripts will only deepen my valley and will embarass and humiliate her even more than she already is. I've ID'd a software program that claims to be able to recover deleted texts and photos from her phone, but have been holding off for fear that she is right.

She is playing you. What she is saying is cheaters logic right out of the cheaters handbook. All cheaters claim that you not knowing the truth is for your own good, but that is bull. You need to know the truth or it will bug you for the rest of your life. If they were exchanging nude pictures, the odds are good that they may have been doing other things including meeting up or scheduling a meet up. They also may have already done some kissing and touching on the trip that you would find out about if you read more. If you do not find out what they said, and later find out that there was more or that they did meet up again, you would be kicking yourself for letting her play you. Take the phone away from her now so that you can get the info off before she learns how to permanently get it lost. Find out everything that you can as fast as you can. Edited December 4, 2013 by Try

[aliveagain]

I think you need to know so you can find out how deep the rabbit hole go's. Recovering the texts can be a benefit if you want to know what she has said about you and your marriage. A litmus test of sorts, which path to take. Having her read them to you out loud will be a humiliating experience and a deterrent to future infidelities, a consequence. They must have been planning their contact with you there. She let him know she was available. Having you there wasn't enough to stop her, there's more problems here than texting. She needs to talk to a counselor about her seeking validation from other men, something's going on.

Edited December 4, 2013 by aliveagain

[ChooseTruth]

Watch out for the trickle truth monster. I wish I had snooped harder when I first found out things were not right.

[drifter777]

Some betrayed husbands don't want details and others absolutely need to hear it all. As long as you know that you may discover things that hurtful to you, she should tell you anything you want. Same with recovering text messages. Remember that you cannot un-see what you are going to see but, if your like me, you need the whole truth. Especially in your case where you really don't know if sexting was all they did. She could be covering up a full-blown affair that recovering the text messages will expose.

[EasternStandard]

Do you think she has had physical affairs with other people or just the sexting? I am not trying to make the sexting sound less than it is. It might be best to talk to her about what she is getting out of it. Telling her to not do it again won't make her stop. If she is faithful otherwise, is that something you can live with?

[atreides]

I agree with others that say to find how far the "rabbit hole" goes. This is not about details but discovery at this stage. You are assuming you know the story and I don't need to spell out what assumptions get us.

 

You also have no real enforcement for the consequences. After discovery, you will have all the pieces and then be able to honestly assess the situation.

 

Be fair to yourself, and others say, be ready for the trickle truth monster

[Oberfeldwebel]

This is subjective, but for me I think that you have to know the truth, no matter how painful it may be. I believe most marriages can be saved, but it must start with honest. Your wife have to be honest with you about what has happened and you have to be honest with yourself on how you feel about these events. I would suggest a couple of things.

 

1. Recommend seeking legal advice, you don't have to file, but you need to know your legal rights.

2. Set up counseling for yourself to deal with the issue and couples counseling for both of you....IF you feel that she is contrite and wants to work on the marriage.

[bubbaganoosh]

My wife and I are high-school sweethearts who have been together for 22 years, married for 16. We have 4 daughters and what I thought was an ideallic marriage. We recently went on a trip with another couple, ended up running into an old friend of mine, who was with 2 of his friends. We all start talking and drinking together and over the course of the evening, I keep noticing that my wife and one of the other friends of my friend have worked their way off to the side, away from the rest of the group. She has done this before, and when I expressed encomfortability with it, I was made to feel like an unreasonably jealous a-hole. So, in this case, I decided to hang back. There was no touching or inappropriate physicality to the conversation, but lots of giggling, etc. I walked over and joined in a couple times and didn't feel any awkwardness, until the last time at the end of the evening, when it was obvious that I had interrupted something. Not wanting our fun getaway trip to be ruined by my reaction, I skipped commenting on it. Fast-forward 3 weeks to my grabbing her phone to look up a contact while she had her hands full and she was obviously uncomfortable with my having her phone in my hands.

 

Seems like your wife doesn't respect any boundaries that there should be in a marriage. She goes off with some guy out of ear shot of the group your with so the question is why.

 

Answer. Because she's up to no good. It's one ting if it was only one time but you just described another time that she's gone off by herself with a guy. To make matters worse, she's sexting with this guy.

 

The hell with having a good time. How can you have a good time when you have a wife that can't behave herself and because you didn't do anything the first time when she was alone with a guy when she shouldn't, it escalated from talk to sending nudies to each other.

 

You either drop the hammer on her and let her prove that she's worth keeping around and can act like a wife with respect and dignity or the next time your going to be adding to this thread that you broke down a door at a motel somewhere and caught her in a full blown affair.

 

Stop playing the nice guy and let her know in a serious manner that her days are numbered and she better pull her head out of her ass real quick or she's going to be out the door real quick. Your choice friend.

[harrybrown]

Get the details. Have her write out the details and give them to you so that you can see if she is still lying to you.

 

How many other affairs has she had? you just never knew about them.

 

How would she feel is you had an affair? Has she agreed to go NC with the OM?

 

Have you set some boundaries, so she will know that if this happens again, she has signed an agreement that she divorces and will pass up on alimony?

[sompuf]

Thanks all. The replies seem to embody my dilemma - I can argue both sides of this. Told her tonight that I don't feel like I can start getting past this until I know what happened - then start figuring out the why. She responded predictably coldly and it kills me to realize that our relationship has devolved to the point of me not knowing if her resistance is born out of embarrassment or trying to hide more lies/half truths that she knows will be discovered. What a freaking bummer this is.

 

I believe it was just texting (he lives in another city), but there was talk of a meeting which she, of course, explains away as part of the game. The come on was (prepare to roll eyes with acknowledgment of the cliche) that he explained that he was in the process of getting divorced from a loveless (and sexless) marriage and that he was nervous about re-entering the single world. She says he won't have any trouble. He says the problem is that he would only want to approach women as "hot" as her. They start scoping the bar for suitable targets for him and the flattery continued. He gave her his number - which she claims she took just to get him to leave her alone. And he asked her to reach out to him. The first text contact was her texting him the following night to ask what he meant by "reaching out". A 75 minute phone call was next on Monday morning, followed 30 minutes later with the first picture. According to at and t, the texting went on for that week and contact ended with a 20 minute phone call that Friday morning where it was (theoretically) broken off.

 

Embarrassed. Pissed. Broken. This purge helps. Thanks for listening.

[tiredofitall2]

She responded predictably coldly and it kills me to realize that our relationship has devolved to the point of me not knowing if her resistance is born out of embarrassment or trying to hide more lies/half truths that she knows will be discovered. What a freaking bummer this is.

 

This statement doesn't make it sound as if she is remorseful. Is she? If she gives you excusses or justifies her bahaviour. "Go Dark" look up the term. Marriage going dark.

 

Also, she stating that he is about to get a divorce is probably BS. She is protecting the OM from possibly embarrassment or all hell breaking lose with his W. I probably would expose it. If she gets mad at you or makes a big deal contemplate D. Why? because it would be a sure sign she is not repentant for what she did. She needs to understand that what she did caries consequences. She can't get off this easy. She sounds like she is becoming wayward and has to some point checked out of the marriage. Before she does something worse the next time you must take action now.

[painfullyobvious]

Is this the first time she has done this or the first time she has been caught? I would want to know everything and you may discover more on the phone you did not know. Seems awful daring for a first times sexting affair to go from talking on a vacation to nude photos and sexting so soon. I think she has been there done that before. I do not know for sure but watch this situation closely.

 

What consequences have you imposed for this? I suggest so sort of transparency on her phone! Good luck. Sorry you have to do this and go through this it sucks

[sompuf]

First time, she claims, and I have no concrete reason for suspecting otherwise. Latest - she flat out refused when I told her I wanted to scan her phone for deleted messages. Says she thinks we should wait until we see a counselor to get advice on whether that's a good idea. Now I'm convinced there are facts being hidden from me and in going even crazier than I was.

[tiredofitall2]

First time, she claims, and I have no concrete reason for suspecting otherwise. Latest - she flat out refused when I told her I wanted to scan her phone for deleted messages. Says she thinks we should wait until we see a counselor to get advice on whether that's a good idea. Now I'm convinced there are facts being hidden from me and in going even crazier than I was.

 

Most likely wants to protect you from feeling hurt and also wants to protect herself from further embarrassment.

 

doesn't mean anything, but cheating spouses lie and that is a fact. But the fact that she wont feel comfortable showing giving you here phone at this point could be for the obvious reasons stated above.

[Mickey_Fitzpatrick]

First time, she claims, and I have no concrete reason for suspecting otherwise. Latest - she flat out refused when I told her I wanted to scan her phone for deleted messages. Says she thinks we should wait until we see a counselor to get advice on whether that's a good idea. Now I'm convinced there are facts being hidden from me and in going even crazier than I was.

 

 

 

It is like a law of nature that cheaters never come clean right off the bat, especially when caught and not confessing. When I say never I mean it's theoretically possible, but I've never known it to happen. You posted that this type of thing has happened before, going off with another guy, made you uncomfortable, so you hung back this time. So in my opinion you do have some concrete reason for suspecting otherwise. Let's face it, this is a pattern, it's just that in the past you either broke it up before it got started or you were completely unaware of the nature of it.

 

 

You also posted how weepy and sorry she was and how willing she was to explain it, that is until you actually wanted to do more than just accept her explanation and get a little proof to back it up.

 

 

Let me ask you a question about yourself. If YOU had been caught out like your wife just was, and the case was the same as your wife just described, would you let your wife look at YOUR PHONE and recover the deleted texts? I know that you would, because, after all, you already told your wife the truth anyway. Your wife does not want to because she didn't tell you the truth.

 

 

For one thing, she didn't break it off with this guy. Maybe now, AFTER you caught her (but I don't think so), but definitely not before you caught her.

 

 

So here you are. She would rather split up then let you see the texts, let you see the TRUTH. The truth is so terrible, she would rather divorce than let you know it. Is that where you are at with your wife now?

 

 

What is on the texts that is so bad? I have my suspicions. You already know about the nude photos and the planned meet-up. The other things that are there probably fall into these basic categories:

 

 

These first two without a doubt:

1. Really raunchy sex talk. This without a doubt.

2. That her story about ending it is a lie. This without a doubt.

 

 

Also probably one or more of these:

3. That she pursued him - she was the pursuer.

4. Badmouthing you to other man - telling him how bad you are in bed, how unsatisfied, how she isn't attracted to you, doesn't love you - you get the idea - really hurtful stuff - and very likely the same exact stuff he told her about his wife - this is their common ground. You can see why she wouldn't want you to see this. It may or may not be how she really feels, but she may have told him it anyway. She lied to you about him, she probably lied to him about you, also.

5. Telling other man about past affairs she has had. If she told him about any, she probably actually had them. Unlike badmouthing you, this she wouldn't lie about just to impress him or keep him interested.

 

 

Cheaters are liars, so you really can't take what she says as the truth unless you have some evidence or ACTIONS to back it up. If the words and the actions differ, believe the actions.

 

 

Also, if a story doesn't make sense, usually it is a lie. When you get the entire truth (or close to it, you never will get 100% of the truth), it all will make sense to you.

[Fluttershy]

The text may confirm it was more than what she admitted to.

Or they are full of nasty things about you and lies she told her sexting buddy. Perhaps she made fun of you or told other personal things.

She might be genuinly ashamed of what was said.

None of the above reasons are valid excuses for you not retrieving them just letting you know just a few of the reasons she might be shaking in her boots.

Deleted texts are not always retrievable id they have been replaced on the phone. Some of the programs will show you there are text messages to retrieve before buyin them. If spending money on a program that finds nothing isn't a concern don't worry, but if it is I'd choose one of those programs first.

If she outright refuses to hand you the phone I would answer with divorce papers. If she can't give you that small act of trust rebuilding and transparency there is nothing to work on.

Those that have nothing to hide... Hide nothing.

[Fluttershy]

It is like a law of nature that cheaters never come clean right off the bat, especially when caught and not confessing. When I say never I mean it's theoretically possible, but I've never known it to happen.

it does happen. Probably less when caught but it does. Though expecting there to be more, specially if the affair is painted in a "we barely did anything" light is wise.

 

 

5. Telling other man about past affairs she has had. If she told him about any, she probably actually had them. Unlike badmouthing you, this she wouldn't lie about just to impress him or keep him interested.

 

I actually very strongly disagree with this one and it contradicts the next part. She could very well lie about past affairs either bu denying they happened to appear more "innocent" or to making up one to appear more wordly and ready for action and good at not getting caught. Seasoned cheaters often prefer other seasoned cheaters. To say a someone doesn't lie about a certain thing just isn't realistic. And pathalogical liars will lie about EVERYTHING. I have had the unfortunate experience of knowing a few and they love to jusge the crowd and play stories to them.

 

Also, if a story doesn't make sense, usually it is a lie. When you get the entire truth (or close to it, you never will get 100% of the truth), it all will make sense to you.

That is an absolute you most certainly don't know (the 100% truth part). He may get a 100% truth. He just won't ever know for a fact if he got it or not.

[atreides]

First time, she claims, and I have no concrete reason for suspecting otherwise. Latest - she flat out refused when I told her I wanted to scan her phone for deleted messages. Says she thinks we should wait until we see a counselor to get advice on whether that's a good idea. Now I'm convinced there are facts being hidden from me and in going even crazier than I was.

 

You are going to have to put the hammer down. This is just not acceptable and you are far from knowing the whole story. Do not let her take control by telling you what she wants, such as counseling on her terms. Everything must be on your terms and you need to set some real consequences and force her to go NC with OM where you can verify and are satisfied with via a letter or call.

[Try]

First time, she claims, and I have no concrete reason for suspecting otherwise. Latest - she flat out refused when I told her I wanted to scan her phone for deleted messages. Says she thinks we should wait until we see a counselor to get advice on whether that's a good idea. Now I'm convinced there are facts being hidden from me and in going even crazier than I was.

You know for a fact that your wife at the very least exchanged nude photos with this other man (OM), yet she treats you like this when you try to deal with her cheating? Are you kidding me? Cheaters always demand that you show them concrete proof prior to them admitting to anything. They do this at the same time as they deny you access to such proof. They will not recognize logic or common sense as tools that you can use against them, as what you think to be true does not matter unless you can prove it to them to their satisfaction. Never mind that they are confirmed cheater, they still demand that they be the only ones to set the rules of the game. As long as you let them set the rules, you cannot win.

 

Real reconciliation requires true remorse, complete transpancy, and full knowledge of what you are expected to forgive them for. Without a commitment to this, you are wasting your time. For me her not cooperating with you in dealing with her cheating would be a deal breaker for me. Your wife knows that you will not leave her and is calling your bluff. Letting her do this without consequences, will be letting her know that she can safely cheat on you with this OM later when things cool down. She will know that even when she slips up and you get wind that something is up, she will be able to stare you down and openly hide evidence from you, thus denying you the concrete evidence that the cheater says that you need.

[aliveagain]

Tell her it's a good idea if she expects you to consider reconciliation otherwise she can work it out with your lawyer. Do not back down, you are always at your strongest at time of confrontation, she'll agree to nothing once she's feeling stronger. Do not let her decide the fate of the marriage, she makes bad decisions.

[jphcbpa]

promise you this is not her first rodeo. she let it happen all too fast for this to be her first time.

 

it was easy for her...like second nature.

 

I bet it is all spelled out in the text.

 

can you recover other texts to other men she has potentially been sexting?

[Cinnimon]

She took his number so that he would leave her alone and then she not only texts him but also sexts him and sends nude pictures? IMO there is A LOT more to this. I'm sorry.