SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

My first post. My story is in my bio, but I'll add it here also.

11/4/23 - WS handed me his phone so that I could help with something on it. Email exchange w/AP was on phone screen. WS admitted to 13-year EA w/AP. I told WS to pick just one of us, me or AP, his choice. WS sent AP no contact email and blocked AP from phone and email. Got into counseling.

1/11/24 - AP called our home early one morning. I answered - AP hung up. Caller ID displayed her place of work (small employer). I called AP back and left message for her to call me back or I would call her husband. AP didn't call back, so I followed through and called her husband about EA. He was dumbstruck.

~12/24 - I found SI. Read a LOT - great stuff. WS's story just wasn't all adding up for me, but I had no proof of PA. Challenged WS to take polygraph (thank you SI). Failed polygraph on 1/13/25. Truth came out that it was 13-year PA. Yes, that was 14 months of trickle truth - ouch.

I want to email AP to let her know what I think of her. All I really want is for her to read it, but I wouldn't mind having her shake in her boots a little! (A bit vindictive, I know.) I composed the email months ago and have edited it to where I'm happy with it.

My question for all you wise ones: which option?
A. Don't send the email. Just save it as a draft or discard it.
B. Send the email, asking her for a brief response - just so I know that she read it. Include a deadline for response or I will contact her husband with evidence of PA.
C. Send the email asking for a complete timeline (when, what, where) or I will contact her husband with all that I now know. Include a deadline for response. This is the version to get her shaking in her boots. I don't really want to read her version of the timeline as I already know too much.
D. Option I'm not thinking of.

Thanks all. I sure wish I wasn't here.

Forget about her. Don't let her know she takes up space in your head. She doesn't care what you think of her, and I'm pretty sure she knows anyway.

Just contact her spouse. Don't play games threatening to do so if she does this or doesn't do that. He deserves to know, the end.

This. ^^^^^

Welcome to SI. If you've read here a lot, I won't do the "read the pinned posts in the JFO forum."

I suggest not sending the email. You don't want to put anything in writing that the AP may be able to use against you. You already know they lie and cheat and there's no guarantee that you'll learn anything constructive.

Welcome to SI, sorry you had to find us.

Do not send it, it would be like chasing a rat back to the dump, you will get dirty.

She is sub par and willingly accepted second place. Your H put her there so he should be your focus. She had to hide and sneak around to stay in second place, because they both know YOU will never take seconds.

D. Contact her husband with short but comprehensive information about the PA so he has knowledge and agency. Ignore her completely.

I contacted AP after my husband’s affair (I was already acquainted with her). It wasn’t a horror story, but it did not help me one bit, and it just gave her the opportunity to dig herself deeper into her lies and self delusion. Sometimes people who lie and cheat are self reflective and change, but I’ve never heard a story where contact from their affair partner’s spouse sparked that. Contacting her just makes you vulnerable to a person who had no problem with you being lied to and deceived for over a decade.

Oh man, do I know how you feel. I have a message typed up for my wife's AP. I worked pretty hard to avoid any direct physical threats, but I sure did imply some things. I haven't sent it. Yet. I know where he works, I know where he lives, and I have a pretty good grip on his schedule. I channeled my inner Liam Neesan. I'm still considering sending it, but it's been 6 weeks since d day, and my wife and I are working on R. I know it wouldn't do much as far as any good for either of us, but it'd make me feel better to strike some fear in him.

I'd love nothing more than to break his face and fingers, but it wouldn't do me much good to end up arrested.

I'm going to look through some of the replies here, but I have a feeling the general advice would be to just let it go...

[This message edited by Pogre at 4:41 PM, Saturday, May 24th]

I'd love nothing more than to break his face and fingers, but it wouldn't do me much good to end up arrested.

Yea I totally get this, but you can channel that energy into the gym, running and yelling in the woods but a guy like that isn’t worth it.

I would not send the letter either. It's good to write it. It's therapeutic to get your thoughts out. But sending just gives them a second chance to hurt you, and really isn't going to accomplish much. I would completely ignore her. Thats how I handle my wife's AP. I do my best to completely ignore him going as far as not even using his name when I talk to others about this situation. I refer to him only as the affair partner. He doesn't deserve any more respect than that.

As for her husband, I would let him know for sure. He deserves all the information so he can make informed choices. One of the more irritating things about being a BS is the knowledge that your agency was taken away by lies and deception. We would have made very different choices had we known all the facts.

Telling him also takes most of her power over him away. Once he knows whats really going on, she won't be able to manipulate him like she has been. She isn't going to be able to have her cake and eat it too.

@SackofSorry, @Annieoakley, @leafields, @Tanner, @Grieving, @Theevent - that is 100% consensus that I should NOT email AP. And yes, you are all so right in all the ways you stated. She is already taking up too much of my headspace. Thanks all.

@Pogre - I'm so sorry you are in this space, and so early on. You confirmed that I am not alone in my feelings of anger and rage and wish to do harm. This is such an ugly place to be wallowing in.

I suppose the AP’s husband could send the same letter to your husband.

You should contact her husband without giving her any fair warning so she can’t intercept your correspondence or spin a lie to her husband in advance.

The message to OBS should be short and fact-based: when you found out, how you found out, and how long you think it was going on.

If you have any pictures, video, or salacious text messages, DON’T include these in your initial message to OBS but tell him you have that information if he wants it.

But don’t be surprised if you discover her husband already knew.

As for the timeline, the only person you should demand and expect those details from is your husband. If he’s unwilling to do so, then you have to decide if you’re willing to tolerate it or not.

The AP doesn’t give a shit about you, is going to be focused on covering her own ass, and she has no reason to believe you wouldn’t tell her husband everything anyway even if she did give you all the information you requested.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 1:17 PM, Monday, May 26th]

Only you can decide what is best for you, but I will share my experience. I caught my husband at the OW's house. I knocked on the door, OW saw me through the window and made my husband answer it. She was standing behind him. I completely ignored her, advised my husband to come home and explain to his children why he didn't live there any longer, turned and walked away.

I ran into her after that when attending my husband's hobby with him. I never acknowledged her. When I look back on it now, that is what I am most proud of when I reflect on how I handled that horrible time in my life. I treated her like the insignificant piece of garbage she was. I scraped her off the bottom of my shoe and kept moving and I'm so glad I did. She could have (and was) been anybody. She wasn't my problem, he was.

That was in 2002. After a year long separation (my choice) and therapy, we reconciled and will be celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary this August (God willing).

Try to see past how you are feeling now and look into the future and think about what you'll wish you had done differently. If confronting her feels significant to you and you feel you won't view that any differently going forward, then do it. Good luck to you.