My (52F) husband’s (59M) affair partner (37F) is being stalked and harassed and I’m getting the blame for it.

I’m at my wit’s end with this situation and I don’t know where to go from here. I’ll try to keep this as concise as possible, but honestly it’s been a real shitshow. TLDR: My husband had an affair with a woman who is now being stalked and harassed both live! and in person. The harassment is escalating and whoever is doing it seems to want people to think that it's “the wife” behind it all. Moving past infidelity is naked enough as it is, but is it even possible when there are constant reminders and ongoing repercussions almost a year later? Should I tough it out, or is this a lost cause? How do I navigate being put in the position of having to interact with my husband's AP if I want to salvage my own reputation?

Earlier this year, I (52F) received a phone call from Amy (37F), telling me that she’d been having a years-long affair with my husband, Ben (59M). I know Amy only peripherally; we online in a smallish community, and we all three work in the same industry. I’m not sure what made her finally decide to come clean, but she wanted to meet in person to explain her side of the story. When I refused, she showed up at our house and made a scene. I won’t get into all the sordid details, but the immediate aftermath was horrendous. Ben and I are currently in therapy and while we are still together our future is uncertain at this point.

As if the humiliation of being cheated on wasn’t enough, Amy went public about the affair on social media, making numerous video updates about her side of the story. She has a fair number of followers on a few different platforms. We also know people in common, so this all circulated quickly around town. Amy claimed that she was protecting the community, saying that Ben was a predator who used his position to take advantage of her, though she maintains the relationship was completely consensual. To be clear, we are relatively prominent figures where we live! and we own a successful business together. Amy described herself as a vulnerable, insecure woman who was swept away by a charming older man working in an industry she was trying to get ahead in. He strung her along, told her he loved her and played on her emotions. According to Ben, they hooked up a handful of times over the past three years, usually when they found themselves at an event together without me. He insists there was no emotional involvement, and that he had been trying to distance himself from her at the time she contacted me. I still don’t know which of these narratives is closest to the truth and I probably never will. For what it’s worth, Ben showed me his phone and the communication he has had with her seems to support his story, though of course I don’t know if he deleted the more damning messages. Amy has threatened repeatedly to post proof that there was an actual relationship between them, but as far as I’m aware has not done so. I know how this all sounds and how it makes me look staying in this marriage, and I can admit now that I initially directed my anger at Amy and downplayed Ben’s involvement. But with everything that’s happened since I feel like I’m completely unable to parse my emotions about all this.

After a flurry of scandal, people eventually lost interest in our dirty laundry and Ben and I started the long process of deciding how to move forward. I blocked Amy everywhere so I was not tempted to check in on her. Then about 3 months ago, I suddenly received a barrage of notifications and direct messages on social media. I was horrified to see that they were from people I didn’t know accusing me of being behind a troll account that was viciously publicly attacking Amy live!. Making comments to the effect of her being a slut, a liar, a homewrecker, not welcome in our town. This person had also combed through my social media and was posting pictures of me and Ben, saying that Amy would never have what we have. The troll was following just one other account: mine. Amy’s plethora of live friends had apparently concluded that “the wife” was the most likely suspect. I had to make all my social media private, including my business accounts, but not before having the humiliating experience of a bunch of internet strangers telling me that I’m old and ugly and that there was a reason my husband had cheated on me.

I recruited a close friend to look into things, since I just wasn’t up to it myself and Ben is pretty illiterate when it comes to social media. This friend went back though Amy’s posts, and apparently she has continued making regular videos updates about the affair and its fallout. According to these, someone has been stalking and harassing her since she went public about it. It started with nasty anonymous text messages, saying essentially she’d be run out of town. She posted screenshots of these and said in a video she suspected they were from me. Someone also hand-delivered a threatening letter directly to her mailbox. All signs pointed to this being someone local who had both her phone number and home address, and not just a random live! troll with too much time on their hands. My friend also let me know that the troll account that was ostensibly me went quiet after 2 or 3 days and that Amy had chastised the people who went after me, saying she didn’t think it was me doing this. Things seemed to die down again, and I tried to move on.

A few weeks after all this, Ben and I received a message from Amy’s employer regarding some emails he’d been sent. These were all from an “anonymous” sender but there were hints that I was behind them. The email address contained Ben’s and my initials, and the sender’s name was my own first name. The gist of it was that certain unnamed influential people in the community were concerned about him employing Amy. The sender asked him to consider the business implications of having a “prostitute” working for him. There were several sexually suggestive/semi-nude pictures of Amy attached, which turned out to be pictures she had posted openly on an NSFW social media account. We assured her boss that this had nothing to do with us, and that we weren’t interested in jeopardizing her employment.

We also made the decision to reach out to Amy and she seemed grateful to hear from us. We wanted her to know this had nothing to do with us, and told her that we’d be willing to help if there was anything we could do. Ben and I had already been talking about retaining a lawyer and hiring a PI. Amy asked if we would write a statement that she could post on social media saying that we did not condone this behavior, that we supported her as a member of the community and that we wanted the person behind it to stop immediately. It struck me as an odd request, but is seemed harmless enough if it would help. Then Amy suggested that we all meet for dinner, to figure out the details and to finally clear the air between us. I shut that down immediately. I assume she’s looking for closure or forgiveness or something along those lines, and I am not at all interested in that. I’m sorry for what she’s going through, but I don’t like this woman and I never will. I certainly don’t want to sit down with her and have dinner and drinks. The call went sideways from there and ended on a very strange and sour note. I drew a very hot line with Ben that we were not going to be providing a statement or communicating with her directly in any way going forward, and he readily agreed.

My friend has still been reporting back to me. Since the email incident, things have continued to escalate. Amy’s apartment was broken into and her NSFW account hacked. She filed a report about the break-in, but the police were unhelpful since there was apparently no sign of forced entry and nothing missing, just her belongings had been conspicuously moved around to show that someone had been there. The hack involved someone accessing her account and making a single post using a pet name she used for Ben that apparently only the two of them knew. She quickly recovered the account but apparently in spite of changing all her passwords, someone is still regularly accessing multiple accounts of hers and possibly stealing private pics. I had initially entertained the idea that this might be the work of a misguided friend, but I no longer think so. I can’t imagine anyone I know going this far. From what I’ve seen, the harasser seems to be trying to give the impression that it’s me, and that I’m too old and unsophisticated to effectively hide my identity (but also apparently an expert burglar and hacker somehow). Amy is the obvious main target, but this unhinged person seems happy to have me as collateral damage. Since our call, Amy has posted videos openly wondering whether Ben and I are indeed the perpetrators. She’s furious with us, saying that our only concern is for our own reputations and asking why we refuse to come out publicly and demand a stop to the harassment, since if it’s not us, this person at least seems to be acting on our behalf. She says it’s unfair that she is the only one suffering the consequences of the affair, a statement with which I wholeheartedly disagree. She hasn’t quite gone so far as to accuse me explicitly, but she has said that she thinks that Ben knows who’s behind it. He’s adamant that he doesn’t and I believe him. My close friends have all been supportive, but I know that there are rumors circulating about me. My own social media is all still locked down because I get harassed by Amy's friends any time she posts if I open it up.

I’m looking for any advice on how to proceed. Obviously we are going to be pursuing this through legal channels, and if anyone has had a similar experience and has advice to share on that front I’d love to hear it. But in terms of my relationship, I’m furious at Ben for putting me in this situation. Originally, I felt strongly that I wanted to try to save my marriage and this all has me wanting to just walk away. However I don’t want to give some crazy stalker the satisfaction of making that decision for me, and honestly how do I know if divorcing Ben will even allow me to extricate myself from this situation? How can I reasonably move forward when this person is keeping us trapped in the past? How much support do we owe to Amy? I do not like her one bit, but I don’t think she deserves this treatment by a long shot and it seems more and more like she might be in actual danger (besides the break in, there was also an incident where she was followed by a van with darkened windows). We certainly have more resources available to us than she does, but I feel like every time she has an opening, she uses it to try to insert herself into our lives. She says in her videos that she still loves Ben despite all of this. If this marriage (or even just my sanity) is going to survive, I feel there can’t be any further communication with her. Does keeping her at arm's length make me look culpable for the harassment? And since Amy is the one with all the evidence, how we can investigate it on our end without her cooperation?