Em, I'm sorry I am late getting back, but I'm very glad to hear that you've had no further contact from him. I hope he has gotten the message and moved on. I really think you need to let your dh know how very upset you have been over this and how it has really affected your well being. He probably saw it in a whole different light and never realized that you have been stressing about it in a big way. I think he needs to know exactly how you feel and how this other man has intruded in a manner that leaves you feeling extremely vulnerable. These days, especially, you have to be very cautious with anyone who continually makes inappropriate approaches without encouragement. Your dh isn't worried about you wanting to fool around, but that is completely beside the point. It isn't about YOU at all; it's the unknown of what is going on with someone who is playing mind games with you on your cell phone. That's scary and deserves support. My situation was entirely different but nevertheless gives me something of an understanding of how you must feel. Before the days of cell phones and caller ID, I began getting very frightening phone calls. It began as a "wrong number" call. The guy made some joking statements to which I responded jokingly as well and then we both hung up. But he called again, and again, and again. At first, it was light-hearted banter and I am sorry to say that I did not hang up immediately, but kind of enjoyed the chat. But it didn't stop and it got weirder. He made it clearer with every call that he knew exactly who I was. Gradually the tone shifted to a menacing one. I would walk in my house to hear the phone ringing and he would say, "Welcome home, Cheri! I'm going to get you soon," or something like that. There was always a threat to "get" me or something similar. I was petrified. If I didn't pick up the phone he would leave a message. If I shut off my answering machine, he would call and call and call. If I unplugged my phone, I felt so scared and vulnerable anyway, as it was obvious from the things he said that he knew when I left my house, came home, even where I went sometimes. He also knew how to play the game because I couldn't get anything done to stop him. The police refused to put the thing on my phone that would trace calls because he never made a specific threat to kill me (is that ludicrous????). The phone company recorded the calls but wouldn't trace them either for the same reason. They wouldn't change my number because they were recording the calls and even if I could have gotten them to change it, they were going to charge me a fortune to do so! Can you believe that? I was a single mother. My kids had to spend every other week with their dad, so most of these calls came when I was alone and most of them were at night. My ex was/is very capable of having orchestrated the whole thing and I suspect he may have been behind it, but I had absolutely no way to prove it. The voice was not his. It just stopped, finally, but after months of being terrorized, I had a very hard time getting over it. It seemed like an innocent thing at first, but it quickly escalated to something way out of my control. I was also a lot younger and had been pretty much...well, brutalized, I guess you could say, in my marriage, so I just didn't have the personal resources at that time to tackle such a situation. Predators sniff out the vulnerable, so the best thing to do if you can manage it is to not appear vulnerable! Sorry to say that I don't exactly know how that's done.

Hi everyone. I am so touched by all of yours thoughtful comments and suggestions. You're like my invisible friends whom I can turned to during this difficult time in my life. I can't really share with anyone in my circle of friends/family at this stage since I want to protect my wife's just in case we are going to work things out. ( For those who want to correct my English and have bias, please take your comments elsewhere. It's not welcome here. The last thing I want to do now is to correct my English. I just type away hoping that it makes sense). So far I haven't taken any action. I just want to think it through carefully and consider all of my options. I am actually very upset but I want to give myself sometimes to cool down and to collect myself so that I can sit down and talk to her in a respectful manner so that I don't hurt her pride. It's amazing that there are so many thoughtful and observant contributors on this forum. Marco keenly identified that I am actually Asian. And yes that is how things work in our culture. Case and point: Her parents ask to meet me first and talk to me before they give the OK to take their daughter out for a coffee on our first date. Not like in our culture here where one doesn't meet the parents until both are serious about getting married. For those who replied and took the moral high ground of respecting privacy, trusting and all that. Give me a break. I am glad you happen to have good marriage and you never have to think about snooping around. Like 'Jenny alabama' & 'labmoma' said one will be curious to find out what's going on especially when your spouse is behaving cold/distant from you and constantly deny and often refuse to talk about the subject of the heart. I can't recall when was the last time she look me in the eyes lovingly. And as I said am a very passionate person. This is where I got an uneasy feeling but didn't confront her on the wedding day. I wanted to make it the happiest day of my life. This is where it hurt me second to the recent event. During the ceremony she didn't even look me in the eyes as she repeat after the pastor and exchange the ring with me. During the entire day she seem to be pre-occupied with thoughts and didn't seem to pay attention to me. Am I too sensitive of a man? I asked her about it later she told me that she was nervous planning for the rest of the day. My thinking was, what else could be more important than spending those precious moments with your spouse in front of God as a witness. And now I am thinking maybe she didn't want to look me in the eyes because she ashamed of facing God for making a decision not from the heart. Yes this is what I get for trusting too much and thinking that how can I go wrong with an educated catholic girl. Of course I respect others' privacy and I think I have placed enough faith in her for the past two years. We agreed that because of the long distance in order for our relationship to work it has to base entirely on trust. I even mentioned to her about the anonymous emails and have never question her. I didn't call around to check her out then knowing that I could very capable of doing that, since it's a small town and I do have relatives who live in the city. She came up the explanation that made sense to me at the time that it was co-worker jealousy. Right before she came over some of my relatives did give me some vague warnings that they just recently heard over the grapevines but they don't want to tell me everything because they don't want me to be unhappy or talk bad about my wife. It's hard to hear that your wife has been around the block. I do find comfort in reading 'bnicebkind's' reply. Yes she does miss home naturally from being apart from her parents and friends and adapting to a new way of life. I do my best to understand and comfort her. She talks to her sister who live in a different state on the daily and call her parent on weekly basis. I find that this might be what she is going through: "Bushduh, sometimes after marriage (and especially after a baby) a woman may start thinking about a past boyfriend, and become obsessed with the fantasy of "what if". It does not always mean that if she actually had the opportunity to be with him again, that she would really want him, but sometimes women fantasize about that person, building him up in her mind to more than he ever really was in real life. Perhaps he was more romantic or made her feel beautiful, or wanted/loved in a way that marriage and the reality of real life cannot measure up to. The "reality" of marriage, responsibility, laundry, and dirty dishes, make some women yearn for the carefree life of a single woman just wanting to be loved, and the romance and excitement of it all. Real life with all of its responsibilities of being a grown up intrude on the fantasy. " Thank you 'bnicebkind'. I wouldn't have the experience and the insight to think of this. As you can see this forum helps me alot. Back home her mom cooks and if needed she simply swing to the corner cafe and get something to eat. Now she has to go to school and go home and cook. She certainly not ready to do that day in and day out. I offer to help cooking and I do the dishes. The problem is most people from a third world country form their perceptions though movies and think that the US is a piece of heaven. I have never promised her of heaven but did tell her as much as I can about how impersonal and busy life here is. Yes money is tight because I am looking for a job. But we live in a nice home. Some how she had a vision in her head that when she come I'd take her traveling before settling down to work/ or go to school and I'd take her on a shopping spree. So she was kind of disappointed when that didn't happen and I only took her to sight seeing locally and shop just enough. I am sure if I were to be well off go out eating often, travel, and shop without thinking then she's not as sad as she is today. But if she can find happiness in little of what we have and build a life together with me then we're in for the long term. I sure hope that it's a phase that she is going through. But for now I have a lot of doubt that is the case. For the life of me I can't understand writing to someone else about missing, hugs and kissing them while being married. But there is more...there is a little details I almost forgot to mention. She actually writing to two guys, one from her home country and the other I don't know(could be here in the US) with similar tone of voice. I am not sure what this fact tells me. Either she is as manipulative as others have warned me or this is how she deals with missing her home. Until we have the 'talk' then I can better judge the whole situation. I hope I am not naive then and accept one excuse to the next. I hope I have a clear vision to see though it and decide once and for all. Like Marco said: "Life is too short to be with someone who doesn't love you back." Thank you for reading my lengthy writing...please check back with this posting regularly and give me some insights.... Bushduh

I'm not holding much hope that things will work out now. The latest thing has been going on for over a year and when my sister ended up by chance running into my mom she asked to come for dinner and did and then things just escalated out of control. I guess because she talked to my mom, my dad flipped out and they ended up filing charges on my mom saying she has abused my sister physically. I don't believe it one bit as my sister was always the good kid and did what she was told, vs. I was the one always in trouble and arguing with my mom and she never lifted a finger on me though I would have deserved it and drove her nuts. I got an e-mail from my sister written the way my dad writes a letter (when I get mad at him and tell him to act like a grown up he sends a letter that he tries to explain why his way is the right way and I just end up not talking to him after that as his reasons just make me even madder). In this e-mail she is telling me our mom physically abused her since I moved to the US (very convenient for my dad) and listed all her injuries and hospital visits. The part that is the strangest to me is that those are all things that she did while playing soccer, basketball, skiing, and/or happened at school. All very public injuries. which makes it even more unbelievable. What really kills me is that my dad think I'm going to fall for this. Guess he thinks I didn't know about any of it. This was reported to the police back in June and they have not done anything about it and indicating to my mom that they don't believe it either. Unfortunatley for my sister she had a brain anerysm (sp?) at 12 years old and her memory in some areas are not the best, as well as her emotions are more on a teenage level now that she is in her mid twenties. She is also very easily made to believe certain things (gullible in a way and she has always been that way even before the brain injury, just a bit worse now) What really bothers me is that my dad is taking advantage of this and thinks in his mind that he is doing her a favor as his letters to me indicates when I told him he wasn't the right person to talk to her about mom because of his obvious dislike of my mom. I'm very worried for my sisters mental well being and wish there was something I could do. I've tried e-mailing her, but don't get a response other than my dad calling me. She did have a boyfriend, but my dad managed to get her to get him to leave (according to him) as her BF would at times talk to my mom. The words your ex told you is basically what my dad told my mom right after the divorce too. I think because she is a strong woman and did ask for the divorce too, she crossed him and he can't let that happen. You seem like a strong woman too and since your son is grown up now he will eventually like me see what his dad really is and probably know in his heart that you've tried what you could to allow him a relationship with his dad. BTW thanks for listening. It is helping to just write some of these things out. I'm still reeling from my dad calling my cellphone (which he never does) on my birthday and trying to wish me happy birthday while I tried to say I didn't want to talk to him right now. I ended up just hanging up as I didn't want to destroy the day by having an argument that would go nowhere with him and only end up with one of his silly letters again. Oh BTW over the years my mom has recieved countless of hate letters from him. I saw a few by chance once and I think at that point I went into denial for a little while until I had the courage to call him on it. He admitted to it, but of course in his manipulative ways had a perfectly good explanation for it too. Well since I now have gotten a few of his weird letters myself I no longer believe his explanations. Also putting all the history of things he has done over the years etc together has gotten me to this point. Took me a long time to realize this (again you don't want to believe your parents are capable of these things) and some of my friends that have met him don't really want to believe me as they just think he's the nicest guy. I just don't understand why people with children have to put their children through this. I applaud you for raising your children like you did even though it must have hurt you and I'm guessing you must have been worried about your childrens emotional well being too, at least I would have. Oh and for those reading this and thinking I'm being paranoid that my dad is doing this. There is a whole lot more to the story and a lot of history to back it up. It would take a book to describe it all. I just tried to cover the latest as short as I could.

I'm trying to get my hands on the records, but I'm having a hard time accessing them online and I don't live in that State anymore, so I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to get the real story. Yesterday was my birthday and I didn't hear from my Dad all day. Nothing today either. I'm a little bit shocked that he didn't at least make an attempt to sneak away and wish me a happy birthday. I'm not sure why I'm surprised, but I am. I was thinking today about this friend of mine. For about a year he dated this girl, and for the first 4 months or so, things were really, really great between them. She was attentive and affectionate and he really fell hard for her. Then as time went on, she grew distant. She started flaking out on him. She'd make plans to come to see him and then not show up and not answer the phone. Whenever he would call her out on her crap, she would have "panic attacks" and cry. It made him feel bad and then she could avoid the confrontation because he didn't want to cause her to have another panic attack. He ended up catching her cheating on him. He broke up with her, but eventually took her back and then she cheated again, so he did finally break up with her for good. But in the mean-time, he kept hoping that things would go back to being the way they were during those first 4 months. He had a hard time accepting that the person he really wanted her to be was not the person she actually was. I think maybe that is the problem I'm having with my Dad. I'm wishing that he was the kind of Dad that I want him to be and that I feel he has the potential to be. I'm wishing it so much that I keep allowing him to throw me under the bus and treat me badly. I keep hoping that things will change and that he'll finally see the light. Obviously that is not going to happen, so I'm going to do my best to cut him out of my life and to not let it bother me. I don't really know if that is possible, but I do know that I can't let him continue to cause this kind of turmoil in my life. It's so toxic. He lies to SM and he lies to me and my brother too. He tells her what she wants to hear and then he tells us that he is sticking up for us. He talks out of both sides of his mouth. I can see his flaws and I always know when he is lying to me. He's not a very good liar. I'm just so torn. I wonder why it is that a parent can continue to disappoint a child and mistreat them and that child still has a heart-felt desire for that parents love and approval.