I. Protect Yourself Financially 

When you first find out about your spouse’s infidelity, pure shock likely will be your initial reaction. It is difficult to think clearly when you are in shock. If in addition, your spouse promises to discontinue the affair, it is tempting to trust him and believe he will indeed do so. He may even be sincere in his promise and desire to protect the marriage. I trusted Scott and I regret it.

I didn’t take any specific action when I first found out about Scott’s emotional affair. I truly believed Scott was an honest person, he loved me and had lost his way. I assumed he wouldn’t dare to touch his family’s money. Most importantly, I believed it when he said he would stop.

In retrospect, I wish I had been more vigilant in protecting myself financially. I was certainly lucky most of our assets were protected. But the lesson I learned is despite being in shock, despite any promises your husband may make, you must take a step back and protect yourself from the worst-case scenario. Most importantly, you need to protect yourself financially. Here are the steps I recommend taking.

Insist All Assets Be Held Jointly or Otherwise Protected

It is vital you insist on this before doing anything else. You may need the help of an attorney or your investment advisor to check on the status of your assets and make changes as necessary. It is clearly a red flag if your spouse resists making these changes. The assets you should protect include

• Your house and any other real property: insist it be jointly held.
• Retirement funds: check on their status to insure they can’t be tapped.
• Other investment funds: demand they be jointly held. In doing so, insist any withdrawals from the funds require the signatures of both parties and ask that you be emailed separately if any withdrawals have been requested.
• College funds for your children: either insist they be put in your name or that, as parents, you control the funds jointly and both of your signatures are needed for withdrawals.
• Your will: check to insure he hasn’t tried to make individual alterations.
• Jewelry or any other items of value: put them in a safe deposit box, with signature and key required to access.

On the plus side, our home and our land in Arizona were jointly held, we had a valid and appropriate will and my retirement fund was clearly under my control. Further, our retirement accounts were our only investment accounts. Our other notable asset was his ownership share in the mid-sized consulting firm of which he was a partner. I had always been named the custodian of both college funds so they were safely in my hands.

On the minus side, I had no idea what he had in other individual retirement assets and no way of checking they were being funded and not accessed pre-retirement.

While I didn’t have a great deal of valuable jewelry, I did have a number of items of value. I generally left them in a drawer in my dresser, only putting them in the safe deposit box when we went on vacation as a family. I was casual about the jewelry and had lost an expensive watch and bracelet after leaving them on a coffee table after a night out. After extensive unsuccessful searching, I assumed they must have gone out with the Sunday newspaper the next day.

Get Visibility and, if Possible, Control of Bank Accounts and Sources of Credit

It may not be possible to get exclusive control of your checking accounts, credit cards and other sources of credit. You should at least get visibility to all of them so you can verify your husband is depositing all of his income appropriately. As well, you should check his spending pattern to look for suspicious activity. This includes

• Demanding to receive copies of monthly statements from your bank, any jointly held credit cards and any credit cards he holds individually. Make a practice of checking these statements for anomalies.
• Closing down any lines of credit not being used. If that is not possible, check them monthly to see if they have been tapped without your knowledge.
• Discontinuing any companion credit cards he may have for cards in your name.

My biggest failing during this time period was not being more observant about our banking and credit records. Scott did all of the bill paying so I didn’t regularly check our bank statements or the companion card charges to my American Express Platinum credit card. Scott had always said he used his Platinum companion card most of the time so we could maximize the loyalty points.

Scott also had two personal credit cards, which he put on electronic billing to his email, saying it was less hassle. However, he didn’t ask me to put my credit card accounts on electronic billing. I was under the assumption he didn’t use these cards very often as he relied on the Platinum card and his business credit card most of the time. I didn’t demand access to those bills either.

Finally, we had a home equity line of credit, which we used at tax time. I didn’t even think to shut it down and since I wasn’t looking at the bank statements, I wasn’t keeping track of the credit line either.

 

II.Get Access to His Cellphone and Find Out He Has Called (or is Calling)

I resisted making any efforts to investigate the woman Scott promised he would stop seeing, phoning, texting and emailing. I REALLY didn’t want to know about her. His description of her was more than enough. She was a spin instructor, divorced with two small kids and in New Jersey. How could she (and her young kids) possibly be that interesting or appealing? I just wanted it to go away. Moreover, I was sincere in wanting to understand why he felt I was inattentive to him, as this is what he gave as the impetus for his affair. I felt a part of it was my fault and I wanted to do what I could to become closer to him.

I also felt it embarrassing, demeaning and unsavory to be suspicious of his motives and behavior. So much so that in the beginning, I resisted acting out on my suspicion. I just did not want to be the crazy “fishwife” who trusted her husband so little she constantly monitored his actions and questioned his explanations. I felt I was above that kind of behavior. Our marriage had to be stronger than that.

As a result, I didn’t implement the following recommendations. In retrospect, I should have.

Check His Cell Phone Calling Record

Your wireless phone bills include the details on who he has called/texted (or has called/texted him –see incoming below) and when. Most of us have family phone plans because it saves money. You can access your family phone plan online and look at these details by phone number in the plan. Look for unrecognizable phone numbers appearing frequently as outgoing or incoming calls and texts, particularly during the work week when he is away from home.

Research any Suspicious Phone Numbers

A reverse phone search engine makes it possible to trace a phone number back to a name, address and potentially other information. I like Spokeo and Free PhoneTracer, both of which are subscription services. There are also free tracers, Spy Dialer, for example. Spy Dialer is a great resource as it also provides the voicemail message for the number you are searching — without the person knowing who called. I recommend using more than one search engine as they sometimes produce different information.

With the name identified, the same search engine can again be used to search by name. If you also get her address and email, you can reverse search those too. Surprisingly, these additional searches may produce new details about the affair partner.

Another option for researching a phone number is to enter it as a Google search. Specifically, you should enter the phone number in quotes various ways (“917-500-0356”, “9175000356”, “(917) 500-0356)”. This method can reveal prostitutes who put their phone number in their on-line solicitation.

 Ongoing Checks of the Phone Bills

With the phone number and name of the affair partner, you can check your phone bills again every month to determine if your husband has resumed contact.

Researching Scott’s pre-disclosure cellphone records would have produced his affair partner’s cell and home phone number and I could have used that to find out more about her. Importantly, I could also have checked our phone bills going forward to see if he had indeed ceased his contact with her, and if later, he had resumed the affair.

But I honestly believed Scott was an honorable man, one with at least enough integrity to tell me if he if he started seeing the woman again. That was not Scott’s nature though. He wanted to have his cake and eat it too.

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