SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

MGFL
I think you should drop the "new toys" plan and concentrate on the following.
1. You need to understand and fully uncover the depth of her infidelity. Poly is a must.
2. Get a better handle on the money situation. How much, how many times etc.
3. You mentioned he (they) have your address. Could that also include any financial info? Accounts numbers etc?
I would move fast to ensure no further fraud can occur. You need to understand your risk going forward.
4. You said you cut her off. That should mean joint accounts, CC's etc. If she has a private account I would insist she open that up to scrutiny.

Your situation transcends infidelity. She has exposed both of you to what appears to be a criminal enterprise. The extent of that enterprise is unknown; a sole actor? an organized group? You need to protect yourself first. At the end of the day you may very well want to separate yourself from this woman, but you still have work to do in getting to the bottom of this debacle.

Just to set your mind at ease, these guys don't want your address. They want easy money, cash and gift cards. (And stolen phones at times.) They are usually in one of these areas, India, China, Nigeria and South Africa. (They can be in other places but these are the main ones.) Many scammers are also victims themselves and being held against their will, but many are not.

Romance scams are often used on people who are a bit older and more vulnerable to sweet talk and flattery. Once the scammer has worked their way into their victim's mind and heart, they begin having all kinds of problems and need the victim to help them. They often claim to be very wealthy and/or a celebrity, and only need this help until they can get their hands on their own money which is being withheld from them unfairly. Many victims will fall into a sunk-cost fallacy, and continue to throw good money after bad hoping against hope that this will someday pay off for them. (It won't.)

Another scam is the Recovery scam. Please make sure your wife knows about recovery scams or she could fall victim to that.

Honestly the best thing you can do is to get her a new phone with a new phone number because the scammers will pass her number around like candy.

You need to sit down, look at your finances and see what the two of you (if you stay together) need to do to rebuild what has been lost, both monetarily, and emotionally. (As stated earlier, buying toys should be the least of your worries right now.)

Does sound like your wife was catfished.
If anything, then that’s positive. It means that whoever is at the other end had no intention of really meeting up with her and is probably right now busy casting his bait at 1000 new women with the hope of catching one, while still maintaining his "special" relationship with the other 2-5 he has struggling on his hooks. Casts a thousand casts pre day, catches one that get’s hooked every week or so, milks them for their money for as long as possible and once there is adversity… its off to a new spot.

The "let’s meet up" is usually followed with some versions of "can you pay the deposit for my flight/hotel/rental" or "Corrupt officials in my country want money for a passport" or whatever, followed by an excuse after excuse after excuse.

The Guido on the other end is possibly male, possibly one person, but just as likely a team of people, ranging from a gangly pock-marked teenager to housewife’s working at a scam-center in Bangalore. Any picture sent is something stolen off a Facebook page.

There might be some threats, ranging from demands she pay some alleged outlays of cost, or threats of revealing sensitive information. IMHO best ignored totally.

None of this justifies her actions. At the very very least this is emotional infidelity and financial infidelity. This needs to be dealt with.
Could make sense to contact your bank and warn them that you suspect you were scammed, and what precautions they recommend.

Nice… I want to address one comment you made on another thread, where you imply that you should have married a fat, ugly broad because she would have stayed loyal.
If the catfish theory is true, then your wife wasn’t targeted because she’s beautiful. She was targeted because she was vulnerable and because she responded. She nibbled at whatever innocent looking bait was offered at the start. She was then hooked. They didn’t care about the depth of her cleavage, but the depth of her bank-accounts.
There is no data whatsoever that confirms beauty has any correlation to fidelity. Remaining true to your commitments is an internal issue, character issue, and you can’t remove it nor hide it with any external beauty – or lack of.
Frankly – that comment is offensive, and staff have discussed it and are willing to let it slide because we know you are in pain.

After looking deeper into this last night. I got no sleep. I don`t know where to go from here? I left a nice letter on the coffee table for her when she gets up. This is the only way I can speak my mind at the moment. I had demands in the letter.

1)STD test

2)polygraph

3)counseling

3)Quit the new part time job. (not a financial deal breaker) This is where/when the communication is happening.

4)give me money

Also, the house is mine. Legally she can`t touch it.

Sorry folks if I come off as a demanding A=hole, but WTF?

Signed-

Pissed off, depressed, and confused.

[This message edited by NiceGuysFinishLast at 2:56 PM, Thursday, March 7th]

Since this situation has taken a different turn via scamming, I think I would have a couple additional requirements:

She puts you in charge of finances. No access to
Money without your approval. Now, I don’t like that
One personally really as I can see situations where that can trap someone and I really wouldn’t like to have that much control over someone else, but this is kinda a unique situation.

Also, she would need to get a second job outside of her current employment to pay back the funds to the joint marriage account.

Just something to think about. Throw it away or modify as necessary.

Update folks:

First and foremost, I want to thank everybody here for taking the time out of their valuable day to weigh in on this issue.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support.

I sat my spouse down and we went through each email exchanged between the two.(that I know of) This has gone on for 3 years.

This was a catfish scheme, and it wrecked our relationship! Somehow, my wife was determined to keep sending money. Working overtime, whatever it took. The man constantly called her honey, and always had a story that he needed more money even though she never talked to him that way.(strange)

His story was a total fraud. He was in another country, something to do with customs and courts and jails, he needed money. To sell a buy/sell a house.

It was strange, because there were several times when he would send some cheesy romantic gesture and she would tell him "no"

Somehow, she was manipulated into sending money to a stranger in another country. 100% the guy was a foreigner of some sort, judging by his words, and grammar, and the postage receipt I saw.

Not only did she cheat me, she lied to her cousin, and went to several different friends and relatives trying to borrow money to send to whoever this is?

The strange thing was, after about a year into it, she kept telling him she just wanted her money back, but yet she kept sending money! Whoever it was they are in Norway. I saw a receipt of some sort of postage. My home address was on there, and I don`t like that at all. My spouse was using our neighbor to take her to town, I assume the neighbor doesn`t know either.

She is now quitting her job to stay home.

No matter how this plays out. I don`t know that I can ever trust her again? She has some serious work to do here.
I still have a lot of questions. This is killing me.

Thanks for your time folks. I hope you are all having a blessed day!

Your spouse is dilousional. You need to protect your assets as much as possible. Your spouse will try to give it all away and ask her what is the end game? Does she expect it back or that she will have a relationship with this person. If you need watch an episode of Dr. Phil. You may just want to let her go and let her sink to the bottom. A 3 year relationship is not going to just disappear. She will or they will find a way to connect or connect to another person. The need to find greener pasures is strong in your spouse. it is not going to go away. Do not let it drag you down with them.

I am trying to understand why she was fishing for a "new" husband - what was the attraction to this other POS? Was he younger, more fit, better looking? Is she not satisfied with sex with you? What? That is what you need to get to the bottom of in order to make appropriate decisions and plans.

It turns out, he reached out to her a little after midnight telling he when he got home he was going to kiss her.

She responded around 2am telling him she hoped he was home now, and how she can`t wait to hear about his flight home.

At 9am She tells him she is going to work at 1pm.

At 930am he responds with let me know when you are here.

then at 935am He says the plane needed repairs so he was going to text her from a cafe, and he could hardly wait to meet her.

Just so I understand, the whole interaction above was role play? He never was in the same place as her to "meet" her or "kiss" her?

Talisman, in schemes like this they generally use a picture of someone else as their bait. She was not talking to the guy in the picture. She was talking to some low-life in basically a scam factory. They use pictures people have sent them on other scams or pictures they find on the internet.

Update.

My spouse quit her overnight job, is changing her phone, with a new number, and going to counseling this week.

She said she`d do a polygraph, and an STD test to show me it never went there. Where was it going to go before I discovered it? I`ll never know?

I am not downplaying her actions. She needs mental help. Something is wrong.

Please refrain from the mean comments towards her, and show some compassion. She is lost.

Stevesn

He said let me know when you are here. sweet kisses by beautiful queen.

It`s all online. I have investigated enough now.

Either way, she lost my trust.

Again I will ask (I did before) - why was she doing this? You said she was "husband shopping" - can you explain why or what she was looking for?

"Again I will ask (I did before) - why was she doing this? You said she was "husband shopping" - can you explain why or what she was looking for?"

I don`t know the answer, other than it was not a good thing.

I do know she quit her night job, got rid of her phone. Changed her number, and she set up Counseling through a marriage counselor.
She also, wants to do a polygraph, and std test.

She is putting in the work, and appears traumatized.

Not giving her a free pass for shit. Let`s just see where it goes. I think she needs to see a psychiatrist, as other mental issues are apparent. This is a sad deal. Maybe the marriage counselor will get to the root of it.

Thanks for your help folks.

Definitely something psychological going on here.
Usually this is a scam fallen for by old widows and
old maids, for lack of a better term.

Hey Nice,
Your wife fell victim to a catfishing scam. Obviously she has something going on internally if she was so willing to reply to a message from some random "guy". A happily married woman knows better - a happily married woman would have hit delete and gone about her day. The scammer exploited your wife by pretending to share similar interests with her and the longer they communicated, the stronger their bond became. It’s good that she’s willing to step up and get into therapy, cut off all ties with the scammer, agree to a poly, etc etc. At the end of the day, the "whys" can be sorted out in her therapy between her and her therapist. And eventually MC if you decide to go that route. She has broken your trust - and that’s a VERY hard thing to come back from. But with hard work and commitment you can recover - it’s not easy, and there will be bumps along the way. It sounds like maybe you want to reconcile. And that’s fine - we’re here to support you in that process. I wish you the best in whatever you decide.

"Hey Nice,
Your wife fell victim to a catfishing scam. Obviously she has something going on internally if she was so willing to reply to a message from some random "guy". A happily married woman knows better - a happily married woman would have hit delete and gone about her day. The scammer exploited your wife by pretending to share similar interests with her and the longer they communicated, the stronger their bond became. It’s good that she’s willing to step up and get into therapy, cut off all ties with the scammer, agree to a poly, etc etc. At the end of the day, the "whys" can be sorted out in her therapy between her and her therapist. And eventually MC if you decide to go that route. She has broken your trust - and that’s a VERY hard thing to come back from. But with hard work and commitment you can recover - it’s not easy, and there will be bumps along the way. It sounds like maybe you want to reconcile. And that’s fine - we’re here to support you in that process. I wish you the best in whatever you decide."

Thank you so much for your words of support and encouragement. This goes much appreciated. I will say, your post has been the most helpful. Thank you.

So sorry to read this.

It appears your wife kept sending $ to keep the connection because she believed she was going to get her $ back.

I hope she gets the help she needs.

How much money was involved? Any of it "yours"?

Quit her job to stay home?

How does that help you? So you have to support her and possibly pay out alimony if you get divorced? So she can have extra time while you’re busting your ass to communicate with other men?

Idle hands do the devil’s work, as the saying goes. She needs to be working and recouping the money she blew on this scammer.

And if she wants to help people, maybe she can donate her time and money to homeless shelter or a soup kitchen instead of randos on the Internet.