SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

From where I sit, though, my desire to see my kids every day doesn't seem like a feeble excuse.

No it's not a feeble excuse, it's very valid.

What your kids need though is a mentally healthy father. Being with you all the time only hurts them if you aren't well mentally. You know your wife is not currently right in the head. Staying in this position long term teaches them that this is what marriage is like. I know you want better for them then the position you are in now.

You staying in this position allows your wife to stay in hers too. That's signing your kids up for life with 2 mentally damaged people. This is the kind of damage that gets worse an worse as time goes on, it doesn't stay at the current level. We want you to demand a change in yourself and in your wife to have a better home life for your kids.

I don't recall how old your kids are but even if they are toddlers and younger, they can feel the tension. Older than toddlers? They know something is going on. You can't hide that. They also know not to ask or comment. I was those kids. They know. This is affecting them every day. You have to stop telling yourself they are fine like this because it's a lie.

In order to become happy and healthy adults these kids need to see that in their parents. You MUST change yourself for them to have that chance. You can't control what your wife does. It would be great if she'd pull her head out of her ass and join you but she has no reason to do that right now.

50% of their time with a happy and healthy dad is better than what they have now.

Your wife will not change until staying the same becomes harder than changing. You need to make staying the same hard for her.

From where I sit, though, my desire to see my kids every day doesn't seem like a feeble excuse.

You will see your children as much or as little as the court decides.

If you do nothing, you will see them every day while you work to support your wife and the OM's child. And the OM will be popping in and out to see his kid and your wife will be popping in an out to enjoy herself with the OM.

Is that what you want? Do you think that's a happy environment for your kids. They will grow up thinking that you are a total wimp.

What choice do you have? You can't control what the OM does. You can't even control what your wife does. All you can do is divorce her and help write the custody rules as best you can.

Somehow you think that this is all going away. It isn't. Right now your wife holds the power. She can continue to play you, she can leave you and live with the OM, and you can't stop her! You'd still be married to her!

Or she could divorce you, aiming at child support, alimony, and what have you.

I'll bet you've not even talked to a lawyer.

And think about the kids. All of them. Your kids will have a half-brother or sister. How do you want them to get along?

DO SOMETHING!

I'll bet you've not even talked to a lawyer.

I have many failings. Lying isn't one of them.

You will see your children as much or as little as the court decides.

You are correct. If we go to court.

If you do nothing, you will see them every day while you work to support your wife and the OM's child. And the OM will be popping in and out to see his kid and your wife will be popping in and out to enjoy herself with the OM.

All possibly true except for the last sentence. And the first sentence; he might be on the hook for child support. And she might continue working, anyway.

She can continue to play you, she can leave you and live with the OM, and you can't stop her! You'd still be married to her!

I couldn't stop her from doing that if we divorced, either, so what's the point? And why do you think we'd remain married if she actually moved out to live with the OM? This makes no sense.

Or she could divorce you, aiming at child support, alimony, and what have you.

She could aim for those things if I file anyway, right? Oh, the lawyer I didn't see told me she would not receive any alimony.

And think about the kids. All of them. Your kids will have a half-brother or sister. How do you want them to get along?

As well as possible? Which would happen if the two of us raise the child together. Seems unlikely but not impossible.

DO SOMETHING!

Enough talk! We want action!

So is your current position one that remains until you find out the paternity? What happened with the letter at MC?

You're right, we do want action. We want you to realize and exercise the control that you do have. Nothing changes until that happens.

You're right, we do want action.

Because we care.

strange, I am so sorry that you are in this club. It is miserable. I was very similar to where you are just 18 months ago. My fwh sprang it on me 3 yrs after the A was over and not only was it an A it was with FBF and the child she had and had brought over to my house on many occasions was my FWH! This after we had used BC from day one of sex together, since he told me early on that he didn't want anymore children because he had 3 already - I have still never had a child of my own.

Like you, I was desperate to save my marriage, and terrified of losing my world and watching it crumble around my feet. I realize now, that I was in a state of shock and going through one of the grieving stages - denial. I tried everything and tried to figure out what I had done wrong to cause this. I DID NOT MAKE THE DECISION FOR HIM TO HAVE AN AFFAIR and you didn't make that decision for your WS either. If he was unhappy, there were many other alternatives than what he chose. And he told me he was not unhappy, it "just gradually happened", like I guess his D*** just slowly fell out of his pants up her leg and into her!

Unlike your WS, mine was desperate to stay married and promised to do anything and everything for as long as it took to prove his love to me and make it up to me, but after just 1 month, he was sick of it.

On this forum it was recommended to me time & again to practice the "180 method" and that is what I am suggesting for you. You can find it in the healing library. It may not save your marriage, but it will save you and it may bring your WS to her senses. Not until I finally really put my foot down and actually signed a rental contract while he was out of town (he came home and found one of the pages I had accidently left out of my purse) did he realize, that I was on my way OUT! This was just 6 short weeks ago, and in the last 6 weeks we have made more progress than the previous 16-1/2 months total.

I now have hope for my marriage and my husband is doing everything he originally promised and trying very hard to be supportive, transparent, and loving. Know that I was moving out for me, not to get him to "act right". Things were stalled and hadn't moved forward at all in 6 months. He said he was done doing anything else and tired of "talking" about it, which he didn't do anyway.

I realized that I could go on without him, and would be ok one way or another. Once I accepted that fact, things turned around drastically. And I am hanging on right now, but am also clear that if we go back to the way things were, I will move on with my life without him. Sometimes love is not enough.

Strange, From your last post, you've again clarified what you're against. What are you for?

SAF,

So it seems you've decided that you will just accept this situation and live with it. If that's your choice, that's fine. It's your life. People posting are just trying to help. So, gently, I'd suggest you don't respond if you don't like a post. And I hope to God you're as flip with your wife as you are with the people trying to help you here!

So what is it you're looking for from us? You seem to have an argument against every suggestion. I know you've seen a lawyer and a MC but you need to get yourself into IC. Maybe a face to face with someone will help you see what you're doing with more clarity. Don't get me wrong, you're in a tough spot. But you're not helping the situation at all.

You state you care the most about your children, and I know you can't see this yet. But staying in this situation is going to harm them in the long term far more than leaving would. If they are your first concern you should go back to the attorney and find out what options you have for custody. It's very different these days. It's been said to you over and over and I'll say it again. 50% of time in a healthy home with a stable parent is far better than 100% of time in a completely fucked up situation with a Mom whose banging another guy, has a child with him and a Dad who puts up with it and even helps raise the OC.

You keep fighting us on that last part. You do know she's still banging him, right? And that she's going to continue to until she sees a consequence for her action. Even if she stops now. Once he starts having visits with the OC and she sees "what a great Dad he is!" she's going to start again.

Save yourself and your children. Hugs to you for the huge shit sandwich you've been dealt.

I had written:

I'll bet you've not even talked to a lawyer.

Strange replied:

I have many failings. Lying isn't one of them.

I apologize. I should have gone and checked first. Sorry.

No worries, Sidney. I don't expect every poster to go back and read every page of this thread. I just got defensive because going to see the attorney was one of the few things we can all agree I've handled correctly in this situation. It's silly of me to get upset at anything someone writes here while my WW is pregnant with someone else's baby. I mean, consider the proportionality alone. Unfortunately, it's a lot easier to lash out on an anonymous forum than it is to take control of my life.

It's not silly of you to get upset at what anyone might say. I get the impression you are used to dismissing your feelings.

You have every right to get upset at whatever upsets you. Sometimes the reason we get upset is because it's dead on and we haven't found a way to deal with it yet. Another reason we get upset is because we are being wronged.

My husband tried to tell me once that I had trust issues and that he didn't stand any chance of earning my trust back because it was *my* problem.

It infuriated me and he took this to mean he was dead on with his assumption. I had to take a few days and work through why it really bothered me.

I finally concluded it bothered me so much because he was a hypocrite. He had never trusted anyone in his life enough to truly open up and share all of his thoughts, good and bad. Nobody really knew him because of *his* trust issues. His trying to turn it around on me was just more of his blameshifting and manipulating. He was still full of shit.

I felt much better when I realized that and calmly communicated that to him. He said at the time he never saw it like that, but it was true. I've shared all my strengths and weaknesses with him, all of our relationship. I made many poor choices before we met and he knows all the details of each one. He admitted that he has shared the most with me, but not shared everything. He's not mentioned *my* trust issues since.

Please don't dismiss your feelings because you think they are inappropriate and you have no right to them. Examine them and try to understand what is really bothering you. I'm hoping you'll be able to do this with your marriage as well.

You know we care about you and want to help. We are going to push to try to get you out of your BS fog. It's better over here on the light side, but we know how difficult and painful this is. Just keep hanging in there.

[This message edited by BtraydWife at 6:52 AM, March 5th (Wednesday)]

SAF, one thing ou really need to think long and hard about is that filing for divorce does not mean you have to end up divorced. It just might be the wake up call your wife needs and if not, well, you just learned more.

Are you applying for those jobs? I hope so as I think something to focus on other than this situation would be good for you.

SAF: I trust things are OK with you. We are on your side, believe it or not!

What is your wife's position? Is the pushing for a divorce? Or is she simply staying in the marriage? If the last, then is she still seeing the OM? I'm sure others want to know as well.

SAF, look you can ignore all these who are saying take action, you can just stand pat and do nothing for now, at some point your wife will have a baby and if it's the other man's , then she will have to deal with the fallout from all her friends and family, bottom line is she will have to deal with reality and you didn't force a reckoning.at that point then you can say what now? you will have had time to look at all possible outcomes, heck you could even diagram them out.

Been thinking about you.

You know when you first found out about the affair, and were like, “F- this. I’m going to do whatever it takes to fix this NOW. I’m handling it as we speak.” And then you did, and she was all like, “OMG. I’m so conflicted. I never thought he’d make those changes.” ??

Yeah, that’s because she found that badass behavior very attractive.

It’s not because she appreciates the second chance. It’s not because she feels closer to you. It’s not because she feels guilty either… for a moment, that little spark was reignited, and it made her have second thoughts.

You know what isn’t attractive?

Guys who bend over and take it. (TRUE, women do love gay men, but only because they’re unattainable. In contrast, you’re the most attainable guy on her planet right now.)

That’s reason number one for you to be more assertive. It’s manlier. It’s sexier. It’s more appealing.

It also takes care of a secondary problem – cheating wives feel like bad people until they’re held accountable. Truth. Unless you get down to business, she’s going to wind up forcing your hand by doing worse and worse things until you absolutely hate her.

In order to be more assertive, you’re going to have to work on accepting the FACT that if you divorce, you and the boys will be okay. Millions have divorced and lived on to be set up on horrible blind dates.

Visualize the boys visiting you at “your place,” and living the good parts of being single again. Once you believe you’ll get through it, you can do anything you need to in order to save your marriage or end it on your best terms.

Good luck ... We're all counting on you.

That’s reason number one for you to be more assertive. It’s manlier. It’s sexier. It’s more appealing.

eh.. I don't agree. The reason for you to be assertive is to protect yourself and your children. I wouldn't give a shit what his wife thought of it.

This is suggesting the 180 is to win the wife back. This is the wrong idea. I know it's listed like that in the Healing Library and I feel that notion does a great deal of harm to traumatized BSs. I hope that can be updated soon.

The 180 is to help yourself. If it makes the WS wake up and pull their head out of their ass, that's great but sometimes it doesn't.

The harm comes when it's taught that it's used to impress and attract a WS and the results don't match. A BS who does this to impress the WS already has unstable and low levels of self confidence. They don't have confidence reserves enough to handle another rejection.

Help yourself because it's the right thing to do to get yourself out of hell.

Help yourself because you have an obligation to protect and provide for your children.

Don't help yourself looking to impress the WS.

Hey SAF - you still with us? Sending strength your way...

Hey, everyone. I really appreciate your concern, advice, well-wishes and even your 2x4's. This is a major crunch time for work so I haven't had the opportunity to write much even though I keep up on a number of threads here. In brief, the situation has improved. We are not in what anyone would call reconciliation but we took steps in that direction. I'd say we are somewhere between limbo and R. Let's see what happens. Any steps backwards at this point would be tragic and possibly irreparable.

Have a great weekend, everyone...if you can. Love and respect to all.

I hope for your sake, SAF, that she is starting to get it.

That being said, DO NOT back off any of your non-negotiables. I know that seems counter-intuitive, but she absolutely must do the hard work. No shortcuts.

When is the DNA test?

Cat