SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Now do you see the Monday night events in a new light?

I am so sorry, friend. I simply wish you the best.

Notperfect:

I actually think you are handling it the best you can. I do not DO NOT believe you are a participant or anything negative/attack like that some have said previously. Not to attack them, it's just sometimes people who are hurting sometimes have a tone that can bring such anger to the table when right now I believe you are just trying to paddle through the waves.

So, paddling and all, I think first, in my humble opinion, or not so humble, you should stop talking about OM - WW affair to all of your children - period. So things you could say is this: Mommy and I, as you are now aware, unfortunately, are having marriage issues. Many marriages have ups and downs. You all are our ups and have nothing to do with the down we are presently going through. You all have nothing to do with this. This is parent/adult/marriage stuff and you all should enjoy your childhoods and not worry about me or Mommy right now. I am totally committed to you, first and foremost, and to Mommy also but Mommy seems a little confused at this time about what she presently and ultimately wants. If you have any questions you want to ask her, please do or if you want to ask us together that would be better.

I also think you should ALL at this point be in family therapy as in yesterday!!!

As for the OM, I think you should talk to him and talk to his employer and why he is no longer involved with your family but it still chasing your wife relentlessly - just go for it - talk to the owner/owners.

As for your wife simply give her an ultimatum. Such as: It's me and your kids full time or him and your kids some of the time and you 2 probably won't work out with the other man anyway because your relationship is fake and fantasy and you started out with lies and you are a cheater and he will never trust you and these types of relationships never work out anyway, so you better choose me and your CHILDREN but since you don't seem to have any morals or ethics right now I am bagging up your clothes and toiletries and sending you out of the house to your mother's.

I am so sorry you are going through this and now your dd is involved.

Everyone has great advice in her actions showing you how she feels and what a horrible parent she is for putting this adult issue on such a small child.

What I havent seen though and may help with the fog is. What did you just teach your little girl by not taking action.

I watched my mother at a young age parade men in and out of our home. We went on day dates with her "male friends" and here I am living like my dad like its ok.

I wised up and decided to take action. While we are early into trying to R I do know that if any contact with anyone that is lied about is a no go end of R.

Find your strength. I suggest letting her go for three weeks and in that time file with an attorney.

You can not control her actions only yours. Remeber what you are teaching you girls. You showed them the power of forgiveness. They now need to learn that unfortunatley some people just take advantage and use other people. Stand up for yourself and show them they do not have to take this kind of abuse.

It will be the harfest thing you ever have to do but eberyday look at your girls and you will be strong enough.

What is the point of asking her to post? She knows you will be reading her posts (or has the ability to read them).

NP5

You need to accept what her actions mean. You've been in false R.

5) I'm still in a rose colored fog while my wife is still in the wayward fog. I am not being honest or reasonable in evaluating the present state of my marriage.

6) WW needs IC to get over perceived or actual wrongs in our marriage prior to the affair. I need to go to IC

Please use the 3-week separation to schedule a minimum of 3 IC sessions for yourself, NP5.

And an IC session for DD10 would be optimal, as the poor dear is going to be struggling with the feelings of breaking up her parent's marriage and her family. 100% of the fault sits on your wife's shoulders, but DD10 won't see it that way without professional guidance. She can't turn to her parents, she can't turn to her (music) teachers; she NEEDS a responsible adult to offer objective guidance.

[This message edited by CharachterReveal at 3:16 AM, February 21st (Saturday)]

I walked in on my dad kissing one of his (many) AP's when I was 12 years old. A few months later I found a poloroid picture in his car of what was probably a prostitute posing fully naked (very graphic picture) ... and this is the only place I have disclosed finding the picture.I did not tell my mom and in fact told no one until I was 30 when my mom finally left him after another AP called her and said she wanted him.

When my mother told my dad what I saw he said "I didnt see anything" ... right, that's why when my mom disclosed the final affair that she left over I told her about the woman, Nancy, I had walked in on him with. Ironically my mom knew about that one but didn't realize what I had seen (though she said now that I told her she knew exactly the day it happened and that was when everything in my life changed, drastically). I told my mom about Nancy before she told me about her.

This is a VERY traumatic thing to happen at this age, and then to tell you about it. I know how much this has effected me, my life and my relationships with both my parents. I have ZERO contact with my father in over 8 years and as far as I am concerned I will never see him again. I have resolved that issue, to me he is already dead.

I have been in your daughters shoes and it would have benefitted from talking to someone about this.

I wont even chime in about what I think about your wife and her "mothering" skills, or lack thereof .....

The kindest thing you can do for everyone is divorce her and work on putting together your new life. Everyone will survive the divorce. I spent my teenaged years wishing my parents would get divorced. I might have walked away with a shred of respect for my mother because she would have showed that it was NOT ok to be treated this way rather then put up with a miserable marriage. Believe me, they hated one another ..... you think you can hide that anger and resentment ..... you cant. You all live under the same roof. The only thing you pass on to your kids is that it is ok to ignore major issues, it is ok to be disrespected, it is ok to live in a bad situation .... Is that what you want your kids to learn? Is that the kind of relationship you want them to grow up to have because that is what they see as acceptable and normal and many people go on to mimic their parents relationship. I wish my mother had gotten out and maybe she would have found a good relationship we could have learned from.

I went on to have a very similar relationship to my parents. My sister has only been in very emotionally and a few physically abusive relationships (to the point where she has to move out when they are at work and not tell them where she has gone, this has happened multiple times .... everyone of her long term (>1yr) relationships)). We grew up with this treatment being "acceptable". My brother, he is just a condescending, nasty person who puts everyone down (that would be my fathers personality).

Just something to think about as you figure out how to deal with the fact your 10-year old came to you and knows. No matter what you try to convince her of (and she will go along with you to make you happy), she knows and she will always know it was bad.

She does need some counseling and a LOT of support. Especially as she moves into her teenaged years.

Do you want your daughters' adult relationship to be one mimicking you, accepting this treatment, or like her mother (to treat her spouse and entire family with such disregard?), because those are the messages you are sending to them. It is about what you do .... not what you say.

I am SO sorry for your daughter. And for you.

I hope things get better for you soon.

[quote]Yes, she described talking to him as a "ray of light" in a dark day. That, I imagine, is the chemical rush. To me it is a dagger in my heart, and I can not take it any more.[/quote]

She says this after 18 months of putting you through hell. As someone said, she is absolutely addicted to this man and has no need to let him go.

Three weeks from now, she will come back after having her fun with him for three weeks, tell you she had no contact, and the merry go round will start again. What does the three weeks accomplish. She has had 18 months

Her friend has still not been confronted

She blames everything on you

She gets another list of boundaries that mean nothing to her

NP5 SHE IS NOT GIVING HIM UP. SHE HAS TOLD YOU THAT TIME AND TIME AGAIN. WHAT IN THAT STATEMENT CAN YOU NOT GET.????

The reason everyone is so emotional to you is because we are outraged by what she is putting you through and your endless capacity to put up with it.

She has already been called out on the Wayward board again for her latest post.

You are too good for this treatment and everyone is right. You think you are protecting your kids but they are watching their mother use their computer and phone to cheat on their Dad.

Your health is eventually going to take a nosedive and that is not going to be good for your kids. No one can live with the stress that she has been putting on you forever.

Please help yourself and file for divorce from this monster that you are now married to.

You told her if she broke NC, you would file for divorce.

She broke it more than once.

You have shown her she can do what she wants, with no consequences. You get mad. You tell her how upset you are. And it has no affect on her.

She has given you no choice.

Filing is all you have left. It doesn't mean it will lead to divorce, but it does tell her you are done sharing her with OM.

What was the point in asking her to post here?

I am so disappointed in you. Its obvious that your children are also in pain and I detect no anger from you for what your cheating wife is putting them through.

Its about consequences. Your WW will not stop this adulterous behavior until you present her with painful options. Instead you offer her a 3 week fuck fest courtesy of the OM. How refreshing; then she can return to the marriage all smiles and ready for some more false reconciliation.

Courage, thats what it takes to apply the necessary consequences. I am sorry that you cannot find it in yourself to become an unyielding obstacle to your wife's obvious intentions to continue this affair. Soon she will openly flaunt this infidelity in your face while the marriage continues; she realizes you do not have the steely resolve to stop her having the best of both worlds.

Have you considered exposing this more? Sometimes this can knock some sense into people.

Reading your profile the MC you went to didn't good for infidelity situation. IMHO the MC was enabling WW by not addressing the infidelity head on.

Why is this sleezbag still employed at the music school? If the know why haven't they fired him based ethics clauses? Other parents should be warned about his tactics.

np5, I think that you should take some time and give yourself a reality check. It seems that your perception and your reality aren't aligned.

I had to do this and here's how my process went (for the most part anyway):

***My perception of "Married" was a partnership. Two adults who were committed to working toward a common goal (safety, security, and stability of the family unit).

***then I found out that he was engaging in a variety of different types of outside relationships with various women. Hmmmm. Ok. This is a problem, but let's talk about it like the two married adult partners that we are and "WS, you need to knock that shit off."

***At that point he cut off comms with any outside females (as far as I know anyway ), but he continued to lie like a rug and exhibit wayward attitude. I was starting to see that he was way too self-centered for me to consider the marriage any type of partnership, but hey -- we're still all adults here and don't want to blow up the kids' lives. So perhaps there's still hope to salvage the mess......

***But, the wayward attitude continued and then he began to re-engage with outside females. Based on his behaviors and our conversations, I realized that not only was I *not* in a partnership with him, but I was also not dealing with an "adult."

He looked like an adult, and he could pretend to *be* an adult -- but emotionally he was still a child. The "me.me.me" of a toddler and the "YOU can't tell *ME* what to do" of a rebellious teenager.

And that is when my "fuck this shit" attitude became firmly entrenched. It had been HIS momma's job to raise him up -- it sure as hell wasn't mine. I was raising up 3 kids of my own -- if I had wanted 4, then I would have had another one and there was no way in hell that I was going to be forced to 'constructively adopt' this man-child and put up with his shit.

I see a very strong parent-child dynamic in your relationship right now.

It isn't your WW's fault that she's emotionally stunted -- but once her lack of emotional health had been identified, there were 2 choices -- put in the work to grow the fuck up or remain stunted and continue to inflict damage on everyone.

It's pretty clear which she made. Her "he's the ray of light on a dark day" statement is just gag-worthy when put into the context of your life. That is what a teenaged girl says to her mom when she's describing her latest boyfriend -- it is NOT what a married mother of 5 says to her husband about some other man!

So you can either:

**become the proud papa of 6 and sit back and watch as the younger 5 turn against their older *sister*; or

**begin the process of dissolving this quasi-partnership to mitigate the damage that your *oldest* child is causing.

(eta: I didn't go back to verify that you have 5 children....so if I'm wrong, then just replace the numbers I used with the proper ones. )

[This message edited by gonnabe2016 at 11:17 AM, February 21st (Saturday)]

Is it years now? It seems that way. You are becoming poor Charlie Brown. Like your wife, Lucy keeps pulling the football away before Charlie Brown can kick it. Over and over and over again. The uneasy tension between trust and betrayal, hope and despair, encapsulated the feeling of your powerlessness. Listening every time I feel you the frustration and disappointment with every bone in your body. Like your wife, Lucy is needed compulsively to torment poor Charlie, and it gnaws at me. Sometimes, many times, I ignore your thread. Then every so often, when the title you open a new thread, I decide to read, hopefully thinking you maybe might finally wake up. But no. I wonder, do you? I wonder what drove Lucy to unrepentantly torture Charlie Brown in this fashion, year after year? Why can your wife be so cruel to you, time and time again?

And now you have your kids spying and telling about your wife's cheating. Still you aren't able to do the right thing for yourself, so now you have a 10-year-old girl biding your job. This has to be damage to your poor innocent children. This whole relationship between your wife and yourself are dysfunctional. Please take a look at what you are doing. Whatever you believe your marriage being intact will benefit to your children, it is not worth the damage you are causing to get there. Please stop.

[This message edited by wk55hn at 11:49 AM, February 21st (Saturday)]

There is a difference between discussing this situation and expressing your personal feelings. Please stick to supporting notperfect5.

NP5,

I know this sucks. I know you want a specific outcome, and you are nowhere near attaining that because your wife is off on a completely separate mission.

It takes a lot for some of us to reach a breaking point, a point in which we must take severe action. Asking her to leave for three weeks could be such an action, but (and this is purely speculation) it could just give her time to go even deeper into her affair.

I pray for your strength. If you cannot find it for yourself (and I know you are still shouldering the blame for her actions), please find it for your kids.

And if you do find it, we are here to help. You have been given a lot of great advice (seeing a lawyer, detaching, exposing, making the affair hard by making things hard for the OM), but only you can find the courage to take these actions.

And yes, taking these actions might mean the end to your marriage. But from what you have told us, this marriage is a one person commitment with the other in and out as she desires.

Maybe it is time to envision a new marriage or a new dynamic - one that is a lot healthier for your family.

Why is np5 being blamed for his daughter walking in on her mom's skype session? It is not unusual for the children in these situations to be aware of the A and the identity of the AP. especially in this sitch where AP was dd's music teacher AND because mom has asked her dd's to cover for her before. I am very impressed that DD made the moral decision to inform her dad.

My DD16 learned of the affair when overhearing our whispered discussions on dday when we thought she was sleeping. Over 2 years later, she asked me if I would want to know if ever she learned her dad was straying again (she'd had a dream that she saw innappriate texts on dad's phone - made her question the right thing to do in the sitch) I told her id like to think she would tell me - that it would be an awful secret to live with and I believe it's always the moral choice to be authentic and live with truth.

Np5 - I do think your dd's involvement should stir up some additional anger - some moral outrage on your part. But in no way do I believe your dd is "doing your bidding" or policing your WW.

Last bit of advice np5. It stops when you say it stops. Aren't you tired yet?

Oh man NP5 - when I read 'he is like a ray of sunshine' comment... It was like a knife in my chest.

You see, I heard something similar when I was trying to 'nice' my spouse back - trying to reason with her, gently make her understand the pain this was causing me.

It was like a knife in the heart then, too.

If your WW is reading this - saying stuff like that to your husband... Why not just leave? Why be so intentionally cruel? Sorry if I am projecting - but oh that was just brutal to read...

Hi NP5. It's been a while since I've posted to one of your threads. Painful stuff to read and I feel very badly for you and your family.

I have not read all the posts in this thread but I do very much agree with Hoops' post. Your WW's on going A (or behavior if you prefer) continues to have a direct impact on your entire family. It has since day 1 as your WW's A has directly involved your children. Their teacher who they know. Not to mention your WW has enlisted one of your daughters previously to help delete and cover up FaceTime acccounts from when your WW was carrying on the A via that medium. Now another incident where your DD walks in on a Skype session. I said it before and I'll say it again... What's next for your kids in their involvement in the A?

Like Hoops, I repeatedly found my mother continuing her A and I continued to expose it each time. I was the one who found out originally about my mothers A and exposed it on dday1. Then 2, 3, 4 lost count. Crushed me to see my father like that. Now here I am 25 years later on SI searching for answers as to why my mother would keep doing this to our family. I wished my father had D and stuck up for us rather than continuing with the sharade of R for another 6 years only to end up in D anyway. My mother, like your WW, not remorseful.

Not telling you what to do but realize the impact this is having on your kids is probably greater than you think it is. This ends when you say it ends.

Strength to you NP5 and peace to your kids.

yop

Realizing that a three week vacation wasn't the best course, I decided to implement the "Post-Divorce schedule". That includes me being with the kids from Wednesday at 3pm till Saturday evening. My wife would then have the kids from Saturday late evening till Wednesday morning.

If she is not at home, she should stay with her parents who live 8 miles away. If I am not at home I will stay at my parents who live 5 miles away.

This is an embarrassing and painful arrangement. The prospect of which my wife was horrified. She begged and pleaded for hours for me not to implement. She pulled out all the stops--love bombing, clinging, bargaining, reasoning, threatening to commit suicide....

She promised to not ever ever ever ever do it again. She got a book of common prayer out and we gave each other our wedding vows again, you know the ones that say, "Forsaking all others"... Then she put my wedding ring back on (I had ditched it several days before). She said it was really tight. I said I hadn't noticed because I NEVER PLANNED TO TAKE IT OFF!

In short, it worked and I got hoovered.

I talked with my children one on one and told them that DD#3 caught mom Skyping with OM and that I was very upset with mom. She was in huge trouble. Mom thought she could just be friends, but after what he asked her to do, I told her that was not possible, and they could no longer contact each other in any way. Mom was very sorry and promised she would never do it again.

So DD#2 is like... OK, yeah DD#3 told me. Hey, when are we going to the farm again? We haven't been there in forever and Sandy (our dog) hasn't had a chance to be there in forever!

Still, I'm not sleeping in the bed for a while. I'm so frustrated right now! I know you all recommend me to divorce her. There will be a time, but not yet. I hope my wife has stared into the abyss. I sure have. It won't take me much more to pitch myself into it.

My wife is a broken woman right now. She is exhausted in just about every way and is in chronic pain with her back and neck. She is driving hours every day to shuttle our 5 kids around. Between work and family she is pulling the eject lever as hard as she can. It's just not working.

So, what to do, what to do...

Today we went to a home school open house. It's a hybrid home school that would save us a lot of money and allow my wife to drive much, much less. If all my kids went to private catholic high school, my wife would have to earn $500,000 to cover it (or I earn that much more). We pay about 50% marginal tax rate. Why does this matter? It is a way out for her. An escape from the pressure cooker she is in right now.

She needs hope and a ray of light that is different that the false one she has been chasing. She needs a way out of this mess we find ourselves in and I intend to help her find her way. At least for a while longer. Otherwise she will one day find her 9 lives are all used up.

Thank you for all your comments and concerns. I know you all won't approve of my actions and that I folded and got hoovered. I am making my own bed now, I know. Some day I hope to look back and say, "I stuck it out and we are better off as a result". I realize I may just as likely look back and say, "why oh why did I not save myself and my children!" That's the thing about the future, probability and managing risk is a messy business.

The lumber yard has been spot on accurate vs. NP5. Bating average LY-.900, NP5-.000. But one of these days I'm gonna be right and I'm going hit it out of the park and bring home my whole family. Please pray for my discernment.

Okay, I'm not going to hit you with anything. I'm just going to say her words are meaningless. Vows mean nothing. Promises mean nothing. Actions are everything. Has she come clean about everything? Because that's what rock bottom looks like for the WS - when there are no more lies, secrets or omissions. When they have to really look at what they've done and own their shitty actions and the consequences.

She's not there. We all know it, and I think you do too.

I hope you will overcome the fear that has you paralysed.