SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Sorry you have found your way here. It is a place that is safe and someone will always offer words of advice and care.

Many have suggested great advice.

Not knowing your wife but being a mother I would plead with her to return home for the sake of your daughter.

Ask her to put your daughter's safety and security first and come home to address the situation together as a family.

This may or may not work (especially if she is using again) but it is worth a try.

Your wife is in a fog. You have not done anything that justifies her poor choices or betrayal.

Be kind to yourself and keep reading and posting.

We are rooting for you.

[This message edited by 1Faith at 6:16 PM, June 26th (Wednesday)]

I hadn't thought of the custodial interference or parental kidnapping option. I'll look into it, it would be a move I could make, but at 13 wouldn't they take my daughter's word on who she wanted to be with if she was pressured or bribed into saying 'her mom'?

I did talk to the lawyer and went over the options about fighting for custody, which state would have jurisdiction, et cetera. All considered, that factor seems the only sticking point, unless her mom ends up in jail.

I believe the state that would have jurisdiction is where she maintains her legal resideNce, or rather the two of you do. I'm sure that your 13 year olds opinion would be taken into consideration, but probably only after an observation by a trained professional. perhaps even at the judge at the hearing. in your home state.

I agree with gonna, get her to text everything to you so its in black and white. if this does wind up going to trial, and I hope it doesn't, it will be admissible.

strength

My lawyer says that Arkansas, where we have legal residence, where she has lived and gone to school for four years, and where the adoption occurred, would have jurisdiction unless my wife filed in California and I filed in Arkansas, in which case a federal judicial arbiter would consult with judges from both states to decide which state has jurisdiction, and I would probably win that decision. Unless the filing happens more than six months after she left the state, and something will happen one way or another long before then. I don't have anything in print from my wife, all of our communication has been over the phone, but I do have several text messages from my daughter over the last 24 hours saying that she loves me and misses me.

Custodial Interference:

Ark. Code Ann. §5-26-501(a)(1).

Interference with court-ordered custody.

In state: Class A Misdemeanor

Out of state: Class D Felony.

Interference with custody: Class C Felony

Ark. Code Ann. §5-26-502(b).

Wife's mom, stepdad, grandma, and grandpa are on my side, and want her to come home and work things out, are very upset with and ashamed of her. The rest of her family is either ambivalent or on her side. I have to try to get some sleep so I don't obsess about the big why and my own imperfections, things I coulda shoulda done better, et. al..

I have to try to get some sleep so I don't obsess about the big why and my own imperfections, things I coulda shoulda done better, et. al..

Billy, the big why is all about what's wrong inside your wife. It has nothing to do with your imperfections. She would have have cheated on Jesus if she had married him!

When you start thinking that you should have done abc or been xyz, remember that she's far from perfect, and you didn't cheat on her!

Is it a healthy thing, psychologically, at least at the moment because I know that there will be future recurring lows...to be prepared to not really care whether she comes back or not? To think about being okay if she doesn't? Not in an angry righteous indignation way, but a half peaceful calm and acceptance? At the moment I have a whiff of that.

Absolutely brother. Around here it's referred to as the roller coaster it's a ride from hell.

Have you seen a Dr yet? I highly recommend a sleep aid/anti depressant. It will come in mighty handy. Also please be sure to at least stay hydrated. The infidelity diet helped me lose about 40 lbs overall. Please at least try to eat.

Strength

Wife just called "to check on me and see if I was all right". I asked "Why"? She said because she cares about me and loves me. I asked her if she had decided what she wanted yet, and she said that she needed to give herself a couple more days to think about it. I told her that if she cared about me and loved me, she wouldn't need a couple more days to think about it. I asked her if she had seen him again, and she said 'no', that they had talked a couple of times briefly on the phone, but she hadn't seen him. I told her that before we could begin to work things out, she had to cut him off, completely, forever. She said that she knew that and that she would call me in the morning. Who knows.

Well, I think you're absolutely right. Love and caring clears confusion. On the on side there's you, a man who loves her, loves and has adopted her daughter, provides home, stability and a chance at a good life. On the other side she has people who are negative, losers, who just want to use her. What's to be confused about?

The WS playbook, chapter 1 says to sit on the fence, eat cake and string people along as long as possible. Make sure she understands that if she tries that crap she stands to lose everything. Start pulling away. Cut the strings. Sour the cake and tear down the fence.

Stop answering her calls. Or, if you must talk to her in case she has something to say about your daughter, stop asking when she is coming home, stop asking about the OM, etc. It isn't helping you. Keep it about the kid. She knows you're willing to help if she comes home. Leave it at that.

Sorry for what you're going through, especially with your daughter. I'm sure it is very scary.

Friend, what stops you from going to her XH's residence to rescue your DD? She is YOUR DD - she needs YOU. JMHO but it she was my DD i'd be on my way ...

how are things going today? hoping for the best

strength

I got about three hours sleep last night. Can't eat much. Pretty typical from what I read here. Why is it that we are the ones who go through more anguish than them?

Anyway, it's 10:30 am California time and she hasn't called me. I'm not going to call her. Thinking about getting a shower and getting out of the house, going to get some sleep medicine and to the bank to start another checking account and transfer some funds so I can cancel her debit card if I need to, although she will say if that happens that I cut off my daughter and MADE them have to stay out there, but I can't be expected to finance her partying and cheating. I did reach out to her mom this morning to see if we can verify through family that my daughter is okay. It looks like she's currently at my wife's Aunt's house. 1,800 miles away from me.

I agree you should go get your daughter. Anyone else who has her could be charged with kidnapping (probably not convicted but who wants to even be investigated.)

I'd stop answering her calls. Make her "connect" with you in a way to have a paper trail. You are probably going to need it.

If I were you, I'd hop on a plane or get in the car and go get my daughter ! ASAP !

She's your daughter too.

Billy your daughter is 13 years old with a man who is no longer her father. He GAVE HER UP.

So why are you not on a plane getting her back???????

Nothing says "I love my daughter" more than Dad coming to take me home.

k9

I think that your instincts are right. Cut her off from spending your joint assets on her screwing around. Get on an airplane, take copies of your adoption papers and photos of your daughter, and go out there and fetch her back to the marital home. Can your lawyer petition to have your daughter returned? I would definately go see him about that. YOU ARE HER FATHER. In the eyes of the law, that POS sperm donor that she has been dropped off with far too many times is an acquantance of her mother and nothing more. (((hugs)))

Just returned from the bank, where I had a new checking account opened in my name only and transferred all the funds from our savings account into it. All she has access to now is enough money I'm leaving in the joint account for them to get home on if they choose to come home. I say choose, because now she has my daughter brainwashed into thinking she wants to stay out there, apparently, or at least very confused about it. I'm permanently disabled, have diabetes and other health issues, and receive disability, so I went by the Social Security Office and arranged for my disability payments to be direct deposited into the new account which has only my name on it. Then I went and got some ZZZQuill so I can sleep tonight.

My wife is playing games by communicating by proxy with me through a friend's facebook IM's, so I figured that out and sent this IM to "her friend" this morning:

"Good morning, XXXXX, lol. XXXXX called me last night, just to let you know, please don't tell her I told you, but at this point honestly I feel like she's just stringing me along for as long as possible, eating cake, sitting on the fence. WHATEVER. I'm her husband, not a 'plan B' or some backup contingency, I'm not a fallback option if XXXXXXX's sloppy seconds don't pan out, know what I mean? She's confused, she says. Well, here on the one hand there's me, a guy who loves her and loves her daughter and adopted her and represents a stable home and good future, and on the other hand, some negative, backstabbing loser druggies and repeat offender scumbags. (Present company excluded). What's to be confused about? Does that make sense? So I'm going to go hang out with a buddy of mine and then have dinner with my dad and tomorrow I'm going to a bachelor's party and Saturday to a wedding. I probably will pass if they ask me to make a toast to the happy couple about the joys of marital bliss, though. ;-> Then I need to go down to see my 95 year old grandma who has taken a turn for the worse and didn't even recognize her doctor when he came in to visit her yesterday in the nursing home, and then to my mom's for a couple of days. Life goes on, with or without her."

Some of you will recognize your own words in that, and I apologize for the plagiarism, but appreciate the inspiration.

The effect that it had is that my wife called me and left a voice mail saying that she was calling to check on me and tell me that she loved me (twice)and that "her head was getting better", BUT that she was going to have to take her car (in my name, I bought it, but whatever) to the dealership to have the computer reset tomorrow, but that it is running fine.

She also asked me to call her back.

I don't feel like I should, right now. Should I let her squirm and sweat it out some, wondering if she's losing her window of opportunity?

I did get confirmation from her mom that my daughter is at her Aunt's house and safe, for now, but getting all twisted up by this.