SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Sorry, but does anybody else here think it’s wise to make such a major accusation without hard evidence / proof?

Yes. I do.
The only person that needs to be convinced is the original poster.

We have had SO MANY instances here on SI where the husband catches the wife in the car with OM, going into a hotel-room with OM, out at dinner with OM... only for them to have some excuse that is about as believable as the old dog-ate-my-homework... And the reluctant BH agrees that in accordance with all he has seen on TV he doesn’t have "hard evidence/proof".

What is "hard evidence"? Does he need pictures of them in the act? Witness statements? Signed afidavits? DNA samples from the bed-sheets?

The OP is allowed to make assumptions that would never pass any legal minimums. He could – in this instance – do as Sisoon suggest. Not that I would recommend it – IMHO it’s generally quite easy to gather more information to confirm (or refute) the doubts.

Like in this instance, the W could have been dropping off Lucy in accounting and therefore came the wrong way home, she could be trying to improve the marriage by getting creative in bed. She could be reading some marital improvement forum about how to please her man and therefore hide the phone... whatever. But she COULD be neck-deep in infidelity...

The OP has been given suggestions on how to better understand what’s going on. I suggest he follows those ideas and sees what he discovers. He doesn’t have to catch her in the act – he IS ALLOWED to make assumptions based on clear knowledge. Like if she says she’s working, but her car is parked five miles from the work-site, or in front of a hotel, or "yoga" seems to go between different restaurants each week or whatever. Whatever is needed to convince the OP.

We don’t know whats going on despite the red flags that many of us might have experience in our journey. And anybody who can read from the single post by OP that a) she is 100% having an affair and b) is doing it in their home... please give us next weeks superball numbers too.

We don’t know whats going on despite the red flags that many of us might have experience in our journey.

Which is why a number of us have been pleading with OP to hire a PI. We all agree he doesn’t need video evidence of a porn nature. The decision is OP’s what the PI finds.

I don’t understand why some here think the best course of action is to confront without more damning evidence than what OP currently has. He only has circumstantial evidence. It’s crazy (to me) that Bigger, with LEO experience, who understands the difference between circumstantial evidence and evidence that more directly confirms infidelity, takes the position he does, but he’s absolutely entitled to his opinion,

I actually don’t think there is much, if any, real difference in the advice being given. Bigger’s point, and I apologize if I am misreading you, Bigger, is that in the matter of marriage, people are entitled to act on whatever proof or innuendo or just a bad feeling they may have. In divorce you do not need proof beyond a reasonable doubt. In most places divorce is no fault and just one partner needs to not want to be married.

But the question here is whether a spouse should confront based on suspect behavior, behavior that can reasonably be explained. Personally, I think it is a mistake to go off half-cocked. If you want to find out if your spouse is stealthily betraying you, you need to go into detective mode until you either find the smoking gun or you exhaust all leads. gr8ful used the term "hard evidence". There is no legal definition of "hard evidence" but I think that is usually taken to mean something beyond mere suspicion, even if that suspicion is reasonable. Reasonable suspicion is the standard for a search warrant, by the way. "Circumstantial evidence" has gotten a bad rap in movies and television shows. It is any evidence from which a person can draw a conclusion without having to see, hear, or touch the evidence. If your lawn was green when you went to sleep and was white in the morning, that is really good circumstantial evidence that it snowed while you were sleeping. You didn’t need to watch it snow in order to conclude it had snowed. In other words, some circumstantial evidence qualifies as "hard evidence." Bigger cited some circumstantial evidence, like seeing the spouse enter a motel room with OM, or the spouse and OM out on a dinner date, as actionable evidence. I don’t disagree because although there may be an innocent explanation, such a possibility is far fetched. But the wife coming home from a different direction? Lots of reasons could exist for that. With the rest of the gut tingling evidence, I think the OP has reasonable suspicion, but not reasonable proof, and should look for more evidence before confronting.

I can only speak from my experience. If your wife is cheating on you as you believe, it is possible she is operating in similar cheater gaslighting superpowers like my wife. I could have walked in on them in the very act and I think she would have told me I needed to believe her rather than my lying eyes. She repeatedly denied anything was going on despite the love poem, countless hours of phone calls, and just my general " spidy senses."
Once I hired a PI who observes her entering the OM’s room at a hotel and staying the evening, she still initially denied there anything untoward happening initially - but finally succumbed to admit only that she had done it. Partial disclosure only came in a subsequent counseling session.

I recommend gathering as much evidence as you can to make the confrontation as fruitful as possible. But the reality is, yes, filing for divorce may be necessary, and may be the only thing that shocks your spouse into reality

Trusting your gut is not the same as getting proof

Getting evidence that a WS entered a motel room is not proof enough in court that the WS had sex in that room

Though it is enough proof to confront a WS for
some though it is best to get as much information as possible before a BS to prevent the WS from denying their affair

Trusting your gut is not the same as getting proof

Getting evidence that a WS entered a motel room is not proof enough in court that the WS had sex in that room

Though it is enough proof to confront a WS for
some though it is best to get as much information as possible before a BS to prevent the WS from denying their affair

I understand what Sisoon and Bigger are saying, but in my case, I did exactly as Sisoon suggested and it went very poorly. I had stumbled across highly suspicious phone bills, and I immediately jumped to what turned out to be the correct conclusion. I summoned my courage, went to my spouse, told him what I had found and what i suspected, and calmly asked for honesty. That was when the man I had always known to be honest and straightforward went into lying and gaslighting mode. It was very successful—I questioned my own sanity and spent a month handwringing and wondering if I was having some kind of stress-induced midlife jealousy crisis.

After a month of this I found a small piece of unrelated evidence that pointed to the possibility of an affair. At that point something shifted in my head and I simply didn’t believe him anymore. I detached and spent a couple of days deliberately searching for proof, which I found in the form of emails between my husband and his affair partner that made their relationship abundantly clear.

In my case, I DID need proof. I’m not leaving a good marriage because I suspect my spouse of cheating. Hell, maybe things look suspicious but are actually innocent. Maybe I’m in an insecure moment and am struggling with jealousy issues. As long as I didn’t have cold hard proof, I was torn between my suspicions and thoughts like those. Proof got rid of all my dithering. It erased my susceptibility to gaslighting, cleared my head, and gave me the ability to act decisively.

So, I’m in the camp that says you should look for proof, and go from there. Don’t be passive and avoidant. It will come back to bite you.

[This message edited by Grieving at 2:28 AM, Tuesday, March 4th]

Really thought I explained my position quite clearly, that what I called "hard evidence" is CATEGORICALLY NOT what would hold up in court. My goodness. Thought I clearly explained the decision is OP’s and OP’s alone.

I would define "hard evidence" as something any reasonable person would conclude infidelity is actually occurring. For example, PI observes wife enter a car with another man, in the back seat together, and then from his viewpoint, sees motion most likely to be oral sex occurring. Perhaps another way of stating it, evidence that no rational explanation could explain away. Something that OBS would agree is very damning.

As I said before, this blows denials out of the water. This emboldens (or it should) the OP to stand up to the lies, gaslighting, blame-shifting, etc. It also gives OP the ability to convince OBS of what’s actually happening, should he make the (correct) decision to inform OBS.

[This message edited by gr8ful at 5:04 AM, Tuesday, March 4th]

Let’s deal with reality. If you can find out on your own, one way or the other, do it. If you can’t, hire a PI. If that is not possible see if a friend, or relative you trust can.
Living in limbo is hell.