SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Those are all very understandable feelings, Bulwark. There is a tremendous amount of pain and grief that come with this kind of betrayal. It's a huge trauma and loss, and society doesn't give us the space to grieve the way it does with more typical bereavement. Keeping a straight face through the rest of your day - for work, for your kids - is a huge feat. You're doing really well under the circumstances.

I functioned so poorly the first several months that I had to ask for a six month extension on a major deadline for my work. In the end, I had to tell the person in charge what I was going through, and that was super awkward, but they were (thankfully) understanding. If your situation isn't so flexible, can you call out sick for a few days? Unfortunately there's no way out but through. Hang in there!

Bulwark,

Do NOT beat yourself up over those feelings. That are so natural. What your wife is doing is cruel and harmful beyond understanding.

Allow yourself to feel. Get a trusted family member or friend to talk those things out. Or a good Betrayal Trauma Specialist.

She is not a friend to you. She is like an entrenched enemy, shooting missiles your way. With this sort of offensive, out in the open disrespect...I really think you should get your lawyer to expedite things. It will be good for your mental health.

I am so sorry for this horrible experience.🙏

I cannot understand someone who takes a loving, faithful, capable partner. One whom she openly admits attraction to, still says she loves, and enjoyed sex with; and then devastates them in such a fashion.

This gave me a flashback to when I was melting down one day over my wife still talking to her AP. I accused her of being in love with him. She looked at me and said "No. We're just friends... with benefits."

All that while telling me that she she still loved me, was attracted to me and wanted to stay married.

What an awful experience. I'm so sorry you're dealing with this man. Just stay strong and stick to your guns.

She's coming back tonight, around midnight. Not going to stir anything up. Mostly just going to say "Hey, kids are asleep, we'll discuss this tomorrow."

In the interim burying my head in side projects, work, and kids.

I'm kind of dreading the entire upcoming encounter.
I guess I'll play it by ear come Wednesday when we actually have to hash it out.
Objectively I want her out by the end of the month. I don't to try to 'call my bluff' because if I have to go nuclear, it means everything gets blown up for the kids. So it's not a bluff so much as a 'don't make me do this'. But at the end of the day, this needs to come to a close. We're a full on year since dday, almost. I mean I suspected before that, but the proof - actual proof. It's a 1 year anniv. at this point.

So yeah. Not really spiraling, mostly just kind of keeping to myself with this nagging itch of a feeling of 'oh great, the witch is coming back to oz.'

Sending strength, brother.

Anticipating those kinds of tough conversations is really stressful. I would have such a hard time focusing on anything else on days like that! Know that your kids will be okay, even if things get rough for a little while. A few months or even a year is a blip in their lifetime.

Keeping my fingers crossed that she doesn't make this harder for you and the kids!

You got this. Don’t let her get you emotional or angry, just stay calm, state facts that her affair and then continuing her affair and flying to see her AP for 2 weeks is disrespectful and cruel to you and the children and she has 1 month to move out.

SB, I don't know about your kid's age but how much do they actually know? What did you tell them about their mother's trip? If you made up some innocent story ("business") they might still sense something is wrong.

I was betrayed by my first husband when our kids were 13 and 15. It turned out that the key message they needed to hear over and over again was that it is possible and okay to love more than one person at a time. (I know, that may sound cynical on this forum.) But for my kids it was a huge relief to get 'permission' to continue loving their father AND their mother. And later on when I entered a new relationship with my now-husband they needed to hear that it is okay for them to love their father AND to like the new man in their mother's life (which they did). And they wanted to know that I loved them AND my new partner.

Looking back, this was key to helping my kids cope with the situation. Building on that, relocation and everything else was not that much of an issue.

Wishing you all the best!

[This message edited by 7m46s at 1:55 PM, Wednesday, October 28th]

SB

Terminating a 20 year marriage isn’t easy. It’s not simply deciding that she get’s six dishes out of the 12 place setting you guys bought 8 years ago, you get the GMC and she get’s the BMW. It’s a lot more difficult and complex.
You give your location as Missouri. That state – like all of them – has laws and regulations on how to proceed. It states things like if you can demand she leaves the family home, how to process the family home, custody, support… the works.

Like your present situation where you have long-since decided to divorce but still cohabit. I’m guessing that’s because you have decided but not yet implemented. Sort-of like my decision in January to go to the gym, but still haven’t gotten to it…
Your present plans of demanding she leaves in the next 30 days… Something tells me its not that simple. Like… who pays the mortgage if she leaves and who pays her rent at her new place? Are they even amounts? Out of marital income? What about the kids?
These are things an attorney can guide you two through. Divorce doesn’t have to be two attorneys arguing over each and every spoon, but legal representation can explain how either of you needs to move out and/or if either of you can keep the family home, how to move the deed and the mortgage to said person, what the other gets and all that.

What I fear is that when you finally tell her to move out nothing happens. She refuses, you demand, she refuses, you demand… and three years from now it’s the same situation.

One knows the full story, the others (10 and 7) don't. There was some .. discussion about telling them before hand, but unfortunately lost that battle. I understood her reasoning and conceded her point. She didn't want them thinking she was leaving and never coming back.

So we're going to tell them later. But for now I have to survive today (Work is heavy AF) and then I need to schedule a 30 min convo about 'so when are you leaving, and when are we telling the kids?'

Pretty much drowning out the 'reunion giggles' from the other room with very heavy music and headphones at this point.
I don't want to hear anything. I'm furious she gets to run off and play pretend in another country, leave me with the mess, and then pretend to be some kind of hero with gifts.

If nothing else, it fuels my desire to get her out asap.

Oh man, that really sucks. Try and focus on yourself. Leave the house when you can. Go for a walk or to the gym. Breathe.

Even this day will be over at some point.

ugh. That went poorly.
I was on the porch, cleaning my son's PC and redoing the thermal paste. She came out and was trying to make small talk. As she left, I said "We'll spend like 30m later discussing logistics". She immediately struck up a discussion, talking about jet lag, and no one ever thinks of her, feels like I'm treating her like a child, etc.

I kept it emotionally calm, even though she consistently kept trying to push my buttons. "Why are you suddenly mad" "Well you said you didn't care what I did" and all these other emotionally framed items. I will admit I didn't hold the line like I wish I did. At one point she's asking why we can't be friends anymore and I said listen - I don't like you. I would never treat a friend the way you've treated me.

That struck a nerve. She didn't like that, but didn't dispute it. We circled around for a bit as I told her simply I needed her gone because I learned these last few weeks I cannot move on with her here.

She ended the conversation angrily when she said that she was feeling like she didn't matter to the family and she had to do all this work to matter when she spent all these years being a mother (always referencing the golden era which lasted about 3-4 years out of 20). I told her listen, we all did the best we could; we all made the best decisions that we could. I Didn't appreciate her saying that she didn't get what she wanted when we were all working towards a common goal. That pushed a button and she shut down the entire convo at that point saying we'll talk later. I consistently pointed during the convo that I jsut couldn't emotionally handle it anymore and needed her gone. That this was too hard, and we need to move on with our own lives.

So I guess at least the core message landed. I still have to actually get her to talk logistics, instead of trying to consistently emotionally reframe everything and litigate the entire marriage as she often does.

Your WW is a very selfish person. Notice how she turns the conversation to herself in every instance. You did well. She is not your friend. It will do no good to argue or engage with her. Just logistics. Keep it simple and straightforward. You are moving on to a better life.

Typical cheater talk, she needs to reframe everything so she isn’t the bad guy. Just stay strong and get her out of the house. If she can’t see how she is at fault for her own actions, that she chose to have an affair, leave you and the kids and just spent two weeks with her boyfriend while you stayed home and took care of the kids and the house, if she can’t see how selfish, disrespectful and wrong that is then there is no point talking to her at all. Give her a deadline to leave, have her served divorce and make what you think is a fair offer. Then don’t engage with her at all, direct anything that doesn’t have to do with the kids to your lawyer. If she wants this over and to be with her boyfriend so badly then she should give favorable terms to get you out of the way.

So now she uses jetlag as a reason to not discuss your demands.
Then – maybe tomorrow or the next day – you demand she leaves in the next 30 days. She counters, or is quiet, or says she will think about it. Whatever.

For 10 days you don’t say anything but wait for her to find some place else. Then you start bugging her. She likes the present situation, so she doesn’t do anything. Come 30 days and what? She can tell you no, she’s not leaving and there is NOTHING you can do. Pack her stuff and throw it out, an hour later the cops are taking you in cuffs to the station while a temporary restraining order is processed and guess who is in your home while you spend the next weeks in a motel?

Or… she could sign a lease somewhere, and if she doesn’t pay you might be accountable seeing as you two are married. Easy to argue that you demanded she leave, and seeing as there is still a marital bond with no evidence it’s being ended, then it’s marital debt.
Or… she charges her stay at some motel on a card that was established while married… Three years from now debt collectors are knocking at your door…

OK – these are "what if" and "possible" worst-case outcomes. Maybe they apply, maybe not.

What I am fairly certain of is that IF you want to move forward, IF you are decided on divorce, then your absolute very best path forwards is to file ASAP.

Keep in mind that filing is just the start. You don’t have to present all your demands and all that right at filing. It’s basically a time-stamp: The moment she is served has legal effects on various things. Like financial commitments, possible residence and so on.

Right now you are, IMHO in a process you don’t have any control over. You can demand, but she doesn’t have to comply. Once you file, a process starts that she can – at best – delay, but not prevent.

Once she has the papers served, you can ask her how she wants to proceed: With sense where you two maybe use one mediator/attorney that ensures a fair division, or with separate attorneys but again with the goal of being fair, or if it’s a full on Kramer v Kramer situation.

Just an update, I was very clear on what I needed and last night she basically informed me that she'd get to work on making a list for me with a timeline. It will be broken out into individual tasks and joint tasks. She's working on that right now it seems.

So jetlag or not, the message got through.
I'll play it out for a little here, but I have a pretty strict "if no discernable progress by X date, then file" deadline in my head.

Regardless of how she acted in that moment, I think the reality of the situation landed squarely on her head. I don't know if I've ever been that calmly direct with her about anything in 20 years, so I've no doubt it cut like a knife straight to the heart of things - which is more likely the reason she pulled the ripcord early on the convo.

That said, I agree; there's a huge amount of 'why is he putting up with this' coming from those who mean well.
I get that.
I have my reasons. Some are tangible (I want to keep the kids in a stable place/etc). Others are intangible (I went through a vicious divorce between my parents as a kid and won't repeat that).

She's played strategically up to this point, using my known concerns to give herself a very soft landing compared to what was on the table a year ago (i.e. she almost ended up on the streets). But that said, time's up. I won't go nuclear just yet. But should I have to, I can and will. It's just a question of meeting certain.. milestones, as it were. Her current position is I think she realizes she's out of wiggle room and will now, due to the extreme discomfort I'm presenting her with what looks like a regular and daily basis, going to leave. We'll see.

I was very clear on what I needed and last night she basically informed me that she'd get to work on making a list for me with a timeline. It will be broken out into individual tasks and joint tasks. She's working on that right now it seems.

Can you clarify:
A list of tasks for dissolving the marriage or for moving on with the marriage?

You indicate you don’t want to divorce, and use the term "dissolve". Are you certain that has a legal basis? Basically – according to my understanding – dissolution (not dissolving) and divorce are basically the same thing in all except that dissolution means both parties have agreed to the whole process, the division of assets, custody and all that before it’s sent to the court for a judge to sign. The role of the judge here is to see if the agreement falls within the laws and is relatively fair, and that both parties have a firm understanding of what they are signing.
Technically a divorce can be the same. Both parties can hammer out an agreement – with or without legal counsel – and then have a judge go over it.
However – if there is any disagreement in the dissolution-process that requires a judges verdict a dissolution becomes a divorce.

I don’t think anybody on this site has suggested you wade into a heated and disputed divorce. In fact I suggested you try to keep it amicable. What filing does is NOT automatically get your separate attorneys and have them argue over who get’s the cutlery and who keeps the cat. All filing does is create a time-stamp that enables you to keep pressure on progress and protects you financially. I doubt you want to co-pay her next trip to Loverboy.

Like now – you have placed your future in her hands. With her task-list and timelines that aren’t enforceable.

It’s commendable that you want to protect your kids, but do you think you are doing that in a dysfunctional household where the partners aren’t showing each other respect? Keep in mind family of origin tends to create the vision people have of what a relationship is supposed to be.

She's played strategically up to this point, using my known concerns to give herself a very soft landing compared to what was on the table a year ago (i.e. she almost ended up on the streets).

Friend – that sentence suggests to me you really don‘t know what marriage and divorce really is, and it definitely isn't a game: In Missouri all general income (as in wages), assets, purchases, debts… incurred during marriage are marital and in the pot that get’s divided at divorce. Unless you owned the family-home 21 years ago, before you got married, and no marital income whatsoever has gone to purchase and/or maintenance… chances are "your" home is "her" home too.

GET LEGAL ADVICE. Even if it’s on the sideline and you do all the paperwork and filing yourself.

Sorry. I'm tired.
Divorce, not dissolve.

My brain's pretty fried from work.

I've spoken to a lawyer. I'm trying not to get into the nitty gritty on a semi-public forum.
We've been to mediation and will likely see the mediator again before this is through.

If there's elements that are confusing, then I apologize, but those are areas I'm not willing to go into extreme detail on.

The problem with mediation is that she needs to play ball. She can skip meetings, or just delay them. She can refuse to be agreeable. And you’ll be proceeding without the benefit of legal advice. You probably already know this, but something to keep in mind.

I know I might come across as hard, but I have seen TOO MANY post here with some utopian home-made idea on how to end their marriage, only to remain on this forum in misery for a very very long time.
I’m glad you are clear on where you head, and glad you have an attorney.
If nothing else – you and your wife can do all the decisions, maybe even the paperwork.
But before anything is signed, have a legally savvy person go over it to ensure the mortgage is only in your name, the lease on her car doesn’t have you as a cosigner, the credit-card issued by the bank you had a joint account cleared and closed and so on.
There are numerous examples out there of people applying for mortgages years after a divorce and being turned down because they are still on the mortgage the ex has the deed for.