SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I am in a long term (7 year) open relationship with a woman who i deeply love and have multiple women in my life at any given time who i also care for greatly. I am abundantly happy and will never experience what you have been through

miyake,

Really? Pretty proud of that are you? I hope you knocked on some wood while you had your chest puffed out like that. Your time will come.

You offer nothing to this thread other than to gloat about your hippie lifestyle. Your type of moral code helps nothing here. Because you have no boundaries in a relationship as you stated. Understand that you are addressing someone that will never live under your code. It is meaningless here. You, as you have stated, dont even consider your female partner getting used by another man for sex as a violation.

This site is about helping people get past their cheating spouses where a contract and boundaries were in place. It is not a platform to brag about how people are suckers for getting married. You inflict even more pain. The OP is already married. Dont be a dick about it even if you dont believe in marriage. Use some common decency.

Just one question for you. How many of your women are or were married at the time you got involved?

Miyake

I think you are in the wrong forum. This is the "just found out" spousal betrayal.

We then support the BS with ways we all dealt with our shitstorm of emotions and issues, we do not berate, insult or display a condensending attitude to the BS. What did you hope too accomplish by spewing your hurtful verbal diarrhea. You've never been married, you have 3 posts, you have zero understanding of marriage and the problems every M faces so why in the F..k are you even on this site.

I really think you were looking for the forum "I just found out" I am a total dick

My hippie lifestyle? What? I am an accountant, I wear a suit and pay tax I'm not gloating about anything. Why are you getting so defensive about this? My boundaries are that another person doesn't disrespect and lie to me, pretty sound boundaries you would have to agree. I didn't insult OP once, I insulted his BEHAVIOR. I insulted the way he has handled this person disrespecting him. What, so because you're married you're immediately excluded from caring about your own individual wellbeing as your own person? You automatically are joined to another person and have to just accept the fact that they are inextricably involved with your own wellbeing and happiness? Do you see how stupid this is? I know you can see this, yet you all behave like it's just something you have to accept once you're married or in any sort of relationship It's just bizzarre. All of this is avoidable.

Yes, OP was treated like garbage. He let this person continue to treat him like garbage, because he doesn't know any better and has been with her for 20 odd years and obviously it is immensely difficult to just switch off emotional dependency and investment.

I want OP to see different perspectives and to realize the importance of his own self worth and happiness. Surely this is some sort of encouragement and way of moving beyond all of this bullshit, rather than the usual regurgitated "oh yeah fuck that bitch!, don't worry man! stay strong brother! you'll be fine! wow, she's truly sick in the head huh!"

I'm not gloating about anything. 5/7 of my close friends are divorced and in every instance it was the woman leaving him due to cheating and just growing out of the relationship. They are still grieving, are bitter, deluded and hate women. I won't experience that, ever. That isn't gloating.

I am telling OP he is worth infinitely more than the way he feels due to the actions of another person and that he feels this horrific is testament to having a life that is abundant and rich without another person.

You all need to reassess why you are even members of this site and what that mere fact means for your life.

I'm not gloating about anything. 5/7 of my close friends are divorced and in every instance it was the woman leaving him due to cheating and just growing out of the relationship. They are still grieving, are bitter, deluded and hate women. I won't experience that, ever. That isn't gloating.

Ah, so you are here because you...fear committed monogamous relationships and you want to reaffirm you beliefs about remaining umcommitted? Or...you came here through a google search on Ashley Madison because you fear one of your womenz may have used it for hookups?

I won't experience that, ever.

Yeah, you're gloating

So are you really here for help at all? There are members here who are in open relationships and still deal with betrayal because their partner(s) kept certain relationships secret. Is this a situation that describes you? If so, help us help you and share your story. Otherwise, the condenscending attitude you are displaying points to your only purpose here as being a troll.

Anyway, to get back on track with helping HnA....

And just to make things a little easier for me, the attorney she hired specializes in criminal defense, not family law. I believe it's a friend of a friend and he's probably giving her a discount rate. When I told my attorney, who has 15 years in family law, he said that was a good thing. We should be able to dictate terms, because the other guy won't know any better, and he'll probably be in a hurry to get the case off his plate. So hopefully that works to my advantage.

HnA, the exact same thing happened in my case. My XW hired a criminal attorney to filed D. In my experience, your attorney is correct in that my D experienced attorney was able to dictate terms as her criminal attorney didn't know squat about collaborative D process and pretty much handed the reigns over to my attorney. Yeah, he wanted to get the case off his plate as well. I ended up getting more than I expected.

You all need to reassess why you are even members of this site and what that mere fact means for your life.

myyuckie,

yep, that is what the site is for exactly. There are a lot of sites that help people, this is one of them. Some people arent nearly as wise as you and are going through a traumatic experience.

You should next go target the "SurvivingTheHolocaust" site (fictional) and let the members know that if they were not Jewish, then their problems would have been avoided. But they believed in something that caused them a lot of pain. Stupids. And maybe they should "reassess" their lives because they are on that site.

[This message edited by TheDarkestTime at 10:37 PM, September 21st (Monday)]

To Everyone...

Please get this thread back on topic and ignore miyake.

Thank you.

Had a rough day, not sure why. Just one of those big dips on the emotional coaster. Had a hard time concentrating on work, and spent half the day reading through online forums like SI. Sometimes I still can't believe this is where my life is at. Thoughts of R with WW still pop into my head occasionally, but when I spend any time thinking about it, I just don't see how it could ever work, and I know she's nowhere near that mindset.

In fact, I found out that she spent over 20 minutes today talking with her attorney and I just got aggravated. She's trying to take my kids away from me, and her primary motivation is money - it really does take someone totally self-centered to think that way. I know she loves her kids, but I also know her primary motivation for filing was money because she told me so. She's under the impression she has a big payday coming, and feels entitled to it, in spite of the fact that I have been 95% primary caregiver for the past 7 months, and really something like 60-70% going back for years prior, all while she was out partying like a college girl or spending the night with some OM. It just galls me to no end thinking about it.

So I've reset my frame of mind and am back to being determined to protecting myself and my boys. I asked each of the kids tonight if they liked living with me, and if they wished they could spend more time with mom. I did this w/o trying to persuade them in any way, I just wanted an honest answer. Every single one of them much prefers to be home with me, and was a little nervous about the fact that they may have to start spending more overnights with mom soon. I hate everything about this custody dispute. Will be so relieved to get that meeting over with next week, and try to get this all settled and legal so it can quit being a point of contention between us.

She's under the impression she has a big payday coming, and feels entitled to it, in spite of the fact that I have been 95% primary caregiver

That is bothersome, but I dont know where she gets this idea she won some kind of lottery. Sounds like someone is feeding her a line of bull.

There are others here that can help about these cases better than I, and I hope they give you help.

Have you discussed this with your lawyer, the fact she is expecting some sort of huge payday?

She's under the impression she has a big payday coming, and feels entitled to it, in spite of the fact that I have been 95% primary caregiver for the past 7 months, and really something like 60-70% going back for years prior, all while she was out partying like a college girl or spending the night with some OM.

Now you see the importance of documenting all of this. Hopefully the judge will take all of this into account. I have the feeling that your D is going to get ugly. Keep a VAR on you at all times and use it to document all of your interaction, as well as copies of texts, etc. Don't stop keeping a log of all of her time spent with the kids vs. your time with the kids.

She's trying to take my kids away from me, and her primary motivation is money

Just my thoughts but if you really believe this then there is your opportunity at a quick settlement. It sounds like she has put a price tag on each of your kids heads and wants you to buy her out of her custody of them. Ok, talk with your attorney about this and come up with a figure that you can feel comfortable about walking away from to get her to "walk away". It may sound like you are "giving in", but the alternate is possibly a long drawn out contested D which costs even more. Is it disturbing that she would trade her parental rights away for cash? No doubt about it, but that is the point of divorcing her, right? To get yourself AND you kids away from who she really is. As my attorney wisely advised, negotiate the property and custody SEPERATELY, never at the same time. Which ever first depends on the situation. I'm no attorney, and I'm strictly going off what you are posting up there, but I would advise negotiating property first.

Now, does it mean you have to cut a settlement check for what ever she wants? Nope. It is a negotiation. Figure out what your maximum cash out offer you can afford and then low ball that inital "cash out" offer to her and her attorney. Make her and her attorney work that figure up as they try to trade equtity and custody for more cash. Understand that your WW is in the mentality of trading EVERYTHING out for quick cash. What you want to do is devalue as much property in the household that she is trying to trade for cash. So, if she wants that "washer and dryer set", but is offering it to you for a cash trade, tell her "Not interested. You can come pick up the washer and dryer after the D is finalized." She's going to start thinking "great...where the fuck am I going to put that washer and dryer set now!" as well as everything else she is going to come pickup. You are chipping away at her leverage by doing this. That initial cash out offer is starting to look more and more attractive, especially if you have an expiration attached to it like "within 24 hrs" if you both are mediating that day, or "within 3 days" if communicating over email.

Now, if you filled out that form or spreadsheet most D attorneys give out then you've inventoried your house and assigned valued to all that stuff already anyway. So just because you say "no thanks" to the washer and dryer set it doesn't mean you forfeit your half of ownership of it for nothing. Rather, your half gets deducted from HER equity claim of assets in total.

Pretty soon, you will get to the nitty gritty about custody. This is where that buffer between your low ball offer and your maximum limit comes into play. I imagine you want full custody. What does she want? I imagine she at least wants visitation, and a most wants to avoid paying CS. What is reasonable in your state and what would the courts there accept and sign off without raising an eyebrow. You and your attorney need to come up with the most ideal solution in yours and your kids' best interest.

Now, back to the property issue, funny thing about some ex's who lay claim to stuff during the D process is that they don't come by to pick up their stuff after the D is final. You give them a simple notice to pick up their items by a certain time or date or it is disposed of off YOUR property. Most find it just too much trouble to ever get their stuff so it either ends up being yours to keep or throw away anyway. "Gosh darn, sweetie, I thought you really wanted that washer and dryer set!"

Now, in my case my XW actually took the washer and dryer set. However, it sits in her bedroom of her two bedroom apartment, unhooked and unused, and covered with a blanket. It was an expensive but total "spite" move on her part.

Appreciate the advice guys. Let me clarify a little. By "payday", I didn't mean to imply WW is looking for a big lump sum. I just think she's expecting a nice monthly check from child support. She's had months to establish a routine but never showed much interest in having the kids over more than 2-3x/week, but now suddenly expects 50%? Yeah..I'm sure that she really misses them.

I'm actually meeting with her tonight to discuss custody. I could have waited until the meeting next week, but I would rather try to get to some sort of agreement before we walk in. Maybe not all the way but set some realistic expectations at least. She probably won't like it, but I thought it would go over better than just marching into the meeting and dropping the bomb. No, she doesn't deserve any sympathy, but my boys are really struggling with the whole D idea the past few days, and I'm doing my best to get along with her for their sake. I've had teachers from 2 different boys tell me this week that they had talked about the D and the kids seemed upset. It kills me that they have to go through this. I'm doing my best to remain civil so that WW and I can be in the same room with the kids and at least "act" happy.

Oh, as another little bonus this morning, I wake up to several TMs from WW accusing me of stealing her family and some of her friends. LOL. Guess she was over at a mutual friend recently and got the cold shoulder. Of course, that's my fault. Has nothing to do with the fact that this friend is an older christian lady and devoted mother, and doesn't approve of anything WW is doing the past few months. No, it must be that I bad-mouthed WW and got the friend on my side.

Does a wayward ever snap out of their crazy thinking, or is this what I'm stuck with for the next few years?

oops....

Posted on the wrong thead

[This message edited by Bigger at 5:49 PM, September 25th (Friday)]

Sure waywards snap out of their crazy thinking.

Your problem is your wife is crazy.....

Why discuss custody with her.

Drop the custody bomb in the meeting next.

She served you with no notice so why are you giving her notice???

Oh I know why. You still love her.

Now do you see the problem?

Get tough and stay tough.

You and your boys deserve better.

Sure waywards snap out of their crazy thinking.

Your problem is your wife is crazy.....

Why discuss custody with her.

Drop the custody bomb in the meeting next.

She served you with no notice so why are you giving her notice???

Oh I know why. You still love her.

Now do you see the problem?

Get tough and stay tough.

You and your boys deserve better.

Wow Happy, that was a little harsh. Sure, I still love her, and probably always will to some extent. I don't think that equates to being a doormat. The goal was to try and keep things as peaceful as possible, work towards a good co-parent relationship.

BTW, sat with her for 3 hours tonight. Talked about a lot of things, including custody. Did we reach an agreement? Nope. Didn't figure we would. Oh, she tried laying on the tears, the mean bitch, every trick in the book. It doesn't impact me anymore. I told her what I would be asking for, thought it was fair and realistic, and had plenty of history to back up my position. She is sticking with wanting the younger 2 boys 50% and the 16-year-old at least 25%. I didn't budge an inch, and told her guess we'll let the court decide next week.

Funny enough, she plans on using the same history as me, and thinks that it will somehow help her case. I've been discouraging the kids to come over, using my money to make my place more appealing than hers, etc. It's crazy talk, but that's what she believes, and that joker of an attorney she hired told her that was a good strategy. So she was nearly in tears driving away and I just said later, and see you in court next week. I think she at least partially realizes she's screwed and was hoping for me to roll over and give her what she wants, which was probably why she wanted to meet in the first place. Poor WW.

So I'm still feeling confident with my case, and when it all comes crashing down soon, she can't say I didn't try to work things out. The whole point is to reach a place the two of us can be in a room together w/o wanting to strangle one another.

I love this site but there seems to be an overwhelming opinion of fuck the WS, make them pay, etc. I guess that's fine if it works for you. I've got no intention of holding onto that kind of anger and bitterness. Doesn't do me any good. But as always, love the feedback, and appreciate everyone who takes the time to read my updates.

I love this site but there seems to be an overwhelming opinion of fuck the WS, make them pay, etc.

I think it may just be a case of over protecting. Sure there might be some anger being projected, but I think in a lot of cases, it's just to help BS's close up their vulnerability so they don't keep getting walked over! As so many of us have, you know what I mean?

HnA, you are handling your situation well. You took some great steps that helped protect your future early on and those are helping now. You kept the hope that maybe a miracle would happen and it isn't happening, no harm there. It sucks, but what can you do, right?

Hang in there man, you are doing pretty freaking awesome!...you know, all things considering, of course!

[This message edited by LonelyLucas at 11:37 PM, September 25th (Friday)]

Hang in there man, you are doing pretty freaking awesome!...you know, all things considering, of course!

Thanks Lucas! So nice of you to say. Yes, I hung on for a long time hoping for a miracle of WW coming to her senses. It didn't happen, and that's probably for the best, because I'm not sure I even believe she's capable of being in a long-term relationship with anyone, not with her mindset.

I don't believe she was always this way, and do own my share of the marital problems leading up to this, but whatever caused her to snap, I think will take years of therapy to fix. And that's IF she ever has enough self-realization to own the issues and seek help - sadly, I don't think it's all that common for a WS to do so. She'll likely keep forging down the path of cheese-less tunnels, always looking for someone or some thing to fix her life, always blaming, never accepting blame. And maybe one day, when she's an old lady, possibly alone, or stuck in yet another unhappy relationship, the light will suddenly come on. She'll look back and realize that it was always her, and regret the life she sacrificed in search of a fantasy.

I never said doormat HnA. Not anywhere.

And amicable is not in your wife's vocabulary.

Your wife will never respect you until you teach her respect.

She wants $$$. She still wants to use you.

So stop talking to her and let your attorney speak for you.

Go for the custody that will ensure your boys are raised the way you want them raised.

Go for the right amount of financial support so your boys are raised the best you both can do.

Stop having meetings for three hours where no positive results are obtained.

Your intentions are good and noble. She does not have any good intentions at this time.

Because she is still selfish.

You and your boys have been through a lot. Don't you all deserve better?

HM

On the other hand......

If you play the game, and appear to want to be reasonable, will this keep her off guard. She thinks she can gain some headway with you.....

All the while you know you are going for the jugular (in regards to custody/support), but remaining a gentleman as you do so.

On the other hand......

If you play the game, and appear to want to be reasonable, will this keep her off guard. She thinks she can gain some headway with you.....

All the while you know you are going for the jugular (in regards to custody/support), but remaining a gentleman as you do so.

Yes, that's a strategy that I thought about in the past. When I last met her, it wasn't out of a plan to be sneaky, but an honest attempt to reach some sort of agreement before handing our fate over to a judge. The problem is, WW is still very wayward in her thinking and was not willing to budge an inch. I figured maybe we could meet somewhere in the middle, but nope. She laid out her demands and stuck to them. I'm sure she figured she could manipulate me into giving everything she wanted, because it's worked in the recent past. But I stuck to my guns, and I believe it took her by surprise.

The good thing was that we talked more about what went wrong in the relationship than we ever had before, because WW was never willing to discuss it. So I am glad that I got some things off my chest at least. But I won't be planning any more face to face meetings like that. I've been sort of reeling emotionally the past 2 days as a result. I thought I was totally detached, but now realize I'm still a long ways away. Court hearing is this Tuesday, where I will have to spend 2 hours trying to convince a judge what an unfit parent the woman I loved for 24 years has become. Life is really screwed up sometimes.

Hurtin,

HappyMan was, I think, just recommending that you not overestimate her capacity to be reasonable. After all, if she were thinking clearly she would be singing a different tune entirely.

For her to be reasonable about child custody is as unlikely as her becoming remorseful about anything she has done. Right now she has not got it in her.

The last thing you want is a judge making some terrible decision based on her demands. Probably, given her choice of attorney and your careful documentation, you will prevail in court. Still, never show your cards in this situation. The wellbeing of your children is at stake.

Your wife is not the person she was, nor is she some English gentlemen who will say, "yes, let's play cricket, Old Chap."

If you can get psychologists and school counselors to back you up, that could make the judgment go even better.

I hope that your gets diddly squat. Hopefully with time she will shape up but don't count on it.