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Thanks you all for the kind responses.

I’m actually at peace. I wonder if the worst is yet to come, but I’m feeling ok. Perhaps things will get much worse for me when I move out. But no regrets at this time.

The house will be listed next week. We are hoping for a fast sale, and a fast closing. My suspicion is that I’ll be moving out sometime in November/December.

Keep the words of encouragement coming, I really appreciate it!

[This message edited by arbuom at 8:58 PM, October 3rd (Tuesday)]

Sorry man but something just doesn't jive. Not your story, her attitude.....just fucked up. I'm not buying her halfassed pity party.

Toby, I completely agree with you. Perhaps it's been said in a previous post, but her attitude reeks of an exit A. One that allows her to walk away guilt free, while making Arbuom look like the bad guy.

Arbuom, sorry for the shit storm you are going through, but it sounds like you are handling the situation well. It does get better with time, so stay strong.

At some point you will feel the calm after the storm and the sweet smell of fresh air.

LM2017

her attitude reeks of an exit A. One that allows her to walk away guilt free, while making Arbuom look like the bad guy.

I doubt this was an exit A, but I don't know what to fucking believe anymore. She could be the most innocent person in the world, or a wolf in sheep's clothing. I will never know...

But one thing is for fucking sure, she is making me out to look like the bad guy! Her constantly telling me that I'm controlling serves no other purpose. I got another ear full of it last night.

One more card to prove it. This is her anniversary card to me a mere 9 month ago (just before the A started):

"My Dearest, Darling Wonderful Arbuom,

How I do love you. I'm nuts about you. It's been an incredible 12 years, with some ups, some downs, and all through, lots of love. 13 years ago, I met you and recognized a true treasure. (she lists all the nicknames she called me over the years, there were many), you've had a lot of names, but always my darling Arbuom. I love you so much, and treasure this life we have together. You are my past, my present, and my future that I look forward to. I forsee sweet times ahead.

Happy Anniversary, My Love.

xoxo

STBX"

I think this living arrangement we are in is really fucking me up. Now that everything is signed up, I really to need to do a HARD 180.

YES YOU DO!

Quit pain shopping brother.

Strength

OP I do not understand why you’re so nice to this bitch that completely destroy your children’s and your lives over her selfish narcissistic entitled needs. The other thing is you The whole time through this coming off so weak. You don’t have a shot with her ever after you guys go your separate ways because you were coming off very weak displaying very Beta traits. she’ll never be attracted to you again sorry, that’s my opinion. For you that’s a good thing. But don’t ever forget what she did, obviously you don’t have to be a complete asshole but I would never forget all the pain she caused you. Her actions and her shitty decision she choose She wouldn’t be my friend and I’ll make sure she knew that. Truly sorry that meeting her has been the biggest nightmare of your life.

Have you shown her the cards you kept? Ask her why she was lying through her teeth when she wrote it.

Or is it because how wonderful her Stah boyfriend was?

arbuom,

Let me say on behalf of everyone in these forums that our hearts go out to you. This has been a horrible year for you, and there are many here who have wanted to help you, and who have wanted the best outcome for you. And we still do. If you have found it a release to post here, and if the advice and support that you have received here have helped you make it through this ordeal, please do continue to post here. There are other forums here beyond ‘Just Found Out’, and they can be just as helpful and supportive to you. If there are issues you want to discuss, but not put in one of the forums, you can always send a private message (PM) to a member and discuss it one-to-one. So please do continue to see these SI forums as a large group of online friends who want the best for you. The door is always open to you, 24/7, 365 days a year.

What has happened is not what you wanted. Many of us have had to face similar situations. The harsh reality of life is that one person alone cannot save a relationship, no matter how much they may want to. What I can tell you is that you did everything that you could in a scenario where the decision had been set in your wife’s mind a long time ago. In other words, there was nothing you could do. No negotiations, no ‘pick me’ dance, no 180. Your wife made the decision unilaterally. I was with a woman for nine years and the relationship ended much the same way. She made a decision, would not discuss it, would not explain it, and I just had to live with it. And I’ll be honest with you, I did have times at the beginning where I broke down, cried, and actually shouted, “This isn’t f*cking fair” to an empty room. If you feel like that, I advise you to do it too. The reason I say that is because it was a part of the ongoing journey of my life that I had to go through. It sucks, but sometimes we have to crawl over broken glass to get to a better place. I am not sure if you have been seeing an individual counsellor, but maybe that is an option to consider if you feel it might help.

Beyond the obvious pain of what has happened, I think we all understand how horribly frustrating this whole thing has been for you. It is truly ironic for your wife to be saying that you are controlling, because the reality of this is that she has been in control of the whole thing, from start to finish. To go by your wife’s version of events, she was writing cards to you full of love and devotion, and acting as if that was how she felt, while actually feeling that there were problems with the marriage and relationship. That was a strange thing to do. It would have been much more productive if instead of giving you a card full of flowery expressions of love and devotion that your wife says she meant, but which she also says were an attempt to paper over the problems (kind of a contradiction to both mean and not mean them simultaneously!), your wife had substituted the love talk with a plain scrap of paper that said, “Honey, we have to talk”. Had she done that, you could have addressed the problems that your wife says she had identified, and this whole mess could have been headed off at the pass and not reached this point. But she didn’t do that.

Sadly - and this is going by her own take on the past year - she instead chose to identify problems that she felt warranted ending the marriage (despite feeding you misinformation that everything was fine), and she then made the decision to end the marriage herself, without discussing those problems with you so that you could do something about them, and then ‘manage’ you so that you were put you in a position where you would be the one to file for divorce, thereby exonerating her. As I say, it is horribly ironic for her to call you controlling, after she stage-managed the process that enfolded over the past year. In fact, and I am sorry to say something that may be upsetting, I cannot help wondering if the conclusion that this has reached may not have been the ‘miracle in the new year’ that your wife was discussing by email with the OM on Christmas day last year. It really looks like she had decided to end things, without doing any work to save them, as far back as that. After that, you were just banging your head on a wall, as the posts in your thread describe. It may be that your wife’s prudery kept her from becoming physical with the OM while she was married to you, but once she is no longer a married woman, perhaps that opens the way for miracles to happen. The OM seemed to have just one miracle in mind. I cannot help wondering what else you might have found in those emails if your wife hadn’t demanded you stop looking after you found her promise of New Year miracles. Her story about the miracle being ‘having coffee together with OM again’ seems a tad far-fetched, particularly as the OM seemed so focused on just one miracle. Unless he is a huge coffee nut, of course.

The discovery of that email does cast a new light on the nature of the relationship, despite your wife’s steadfast refusals that it was any kind of an affair, and she is being self-serving, disingenuous, and dishonest to continue with those assertions. She clearly wants to be ‘the good guy’ in this sad tale, so she cannot be more honest with you because she is not being honest with herself. However, and again I apologise for saying something that may be upsetting, I cannot help thinking that if your wife continues to deny an emotional affair, then she ought to be honest enough admit that her year-long relationship with the OM was emotional foreplay. Exactly where that might be leading, only time will tell.

If – and this is only an ‘if – your wife’s separated status does open doors to an expansion of her relationship with the OM, you can be sure that your wife will go to great lengths to conceal it. It seems counter-intuitive to think that she would have cultivated that relationship with him for a whole year, only to drop it as soon as she stops being married. The OM also has every reason to be discrete, considering he is being ‘carried’ by his wife. It is anybody’s guess how much his wife knows about his activities, but I do think you should go and let her know about what has happened to your marriage, and that your wife may become more of a threat to their marriage in future. Once you have done that, I really think you should walk away from it and just let everyone involved do whatever they are going to do.

You need to focus on yourself, and building a future for yourself, and whatever your wife, the OM, or the OM’s wife do are things for them to worry about, not you. You have worried about them for long enough, and it really did not good, did it? So please, friend, let yourself off the hook. There may be many painful aspects to the separation, but it also means you will be released from the horrible limbo you have existed in through this past year, and that you no longer need to worry about what may or may not happen with the OM. Be good to yourself. Just release all that crap, arbuom, you no longer have to carry that toxic burden any more. It has weighed you down for long enough.

You have said that the living arrangements and all the hugging from your wife are hard for you to take. That is understandable. Your wife wants you to hug her as an act of confirmation that you do not hate her or hold her responsible for a process which she alone engineered, and which she made you a helpless passenger in once she decided what she wanted to do. It was not fair, it was not right, be we live in the real world, and the real world is very often neither fair nor right. However, what I would suggest to you is that if the domestic situation and the lovey-dovey stuff is hard to bear, is it possible for you to book yourself into a hotel and get away from it? I know that is shit, I know that it sucks, but wouldn’t that be better than continuing in a situation that you are uncomfortable with? You will be living apart soon enough, so why not make an early start on it?

In terms of how you could ‘frame’ this, I would say the following. For whatever reason, your wife has decided to opt out of the marriage, and there is no point to make this any less unpleasant or upsetting than it already is. Going to war with her will not make anything better, and I sincerely suggest that if you do enter a rage phase, you go to a gym and beat the crap out of a punch-bag and see an individual counsellor rather than shouting at your wife. The urge to do the latter might be entirely understandable, but seriously arbuom, it won’t make a single thing better, and it may even play into her attempt to paint you as the unreasonable bad guy. It would be better for you, and for the kids, to take a step back from the fine detail of this (very hard to do, I know) and view it as a marriage that ended because one person lost the will to continue it, not as the result of any kind of cruel or wilful conspiracy, and definitely not as some kind of vindictive act designed to hurt you.

Parting will be hard, but if your wife really had lost heart and the will to continue the marriage, it is possible that it would have deteriorated and become much worse if it had been allowed to continue as an increasingly one-sided thing. It is sometimes better to end a thing when both parties can be polite and respectful to one another, particularly where children are involved, than to have it degenerate into one or both people hitting the bottle, having increasingly bitter arguments, plate throwing, and all the other horrible things that can happen when a relationship is allowed to crash and burn badly before people bale out.

As tough as this is for you, arbuom, it could have been much, much worse, which I know will be little consolation to you right now, but in time I hope you will be able to see that. You are able to walk away from this with your head held high, a decent guy, a good father, and not the bad guy. And your wife? Well, she didn’t play fair with you, but it was not a vindictive act on her part that she lost the will to continue the marriage. She is losing every bit as much in this as you are. The years of your life that you put in match the years of her life that she put in, so this is in no way a ‘victory’ for her. Relationships can and do run their course. It happens every day. They can be, and usually are, ended because one person loses heart, and all we can do when that happens is accept the reality of the situation, not rage about whether or not it is just or right (because life so often is not just or right), and start planning on how to have as good a future as we can.

As far as what you tell people, I think you should stick to a straight recounting of the events, with an agenda of stating your case so you cannot be painted as a bad guy, but rather as a passenger on a train that was driven by your wife. You were not given any chance to work on the 'problems' that were identified, nor were you given honest information. I would not go further than stating the facts like that, as dispassionately as you can.

I do think your wife has been 'managing' what has been said so far, and to whom (for example, her parents), so if you feel you need to, it may be worth going to see several key people in person and stating your case, just so you cannot be misrepresented. It may help to write out a 'script', and edit it to keep it factual, honest, and not accusatory. It will actually have more impact that way, and you do deserve a chance to state your side of the case, because it is likely your wife will be stating hers. If you choose to go and talk to her parents, and she doesn't like it, that is tough. You did not want any of this, and you are within your rights to let the key players know. You really should not be painted as 'controlling' to people because you did not want your wife, and the mother of your children, going off alone with another man hiking, or spending whole days with him (as per your original post).

And as I said at the start of this post, there are more forums here that you can, and I believe you should, post in as you move forward, because there is a huge amount of goodwill and experience here that can help you with whatever you want to discuss, 24/7, 365 days a year. So please keep posting, arbuom, and if we can do anything to help you, we will.

You will get through this, arbuom. We all did. You will too. Throughout whatever may come in the next few months, stay true to yourself, arbuom, and you will not go wrong. You're a good guy, with a good set of values.

[This message edited by M1965 at 2:50 PM, October 4th (Wednesday)]

I just wanted to repeat what has just been posted. Her stopping you from reading her emails is particularly damning.

If she had nothing to hide she would have just laughed at you and let you keep reading. Even worse if she has started contact with him.

She signed the papers, time to man up and put the 180 in full force.

She may be playing chicken with you. Stop the hugs etc., 180 and see what happens. Either outcome will be helped by disconnecting completely at this point. You have been fired as her husband and friend. Make sure she doesn't continue to use you for both.

Looking at the cards that she sent you is tough. I bet that when she wrote the card, those were her feelings.

But now she does not feel that.

Why the change...who knows.

Similar thing happened to me by my GF. The woman who wrote the loving words truely meant them. OTOH a few months later she didn't, no matter how many time I said "what about the letters!". She was gone.

[This message edited by MickeyBill2016 at 3:33 PM, October 4th (Wednesday)]

Arbuom,

I have been following your story from the beginning. This is heart wrenching however you are doing a great job managing this trainwreck of a Marriage. I have posted regularly on a different forum but have practiced restraint here for who knows why...I am compelled to through out my 2 cents.

1. Do you have the ability to go back and download the remaining messages that were left when she stopped you? This very well could be the last thing you need to feel stronger about moving forward. (I was personally hoping she'd come to her senses, prove her love for you and mend your heart but it doesn't look like she was being completely honest with you.) If you can't download those messages without her permission then simply explain to her that you have been giving her the hugs she needs and that you need this to complete your closure on the M. She wants the D as bad as you and therefore she should oblige you on this.

2. I agree with the prior poster stating that looking at the card she gave you is torture. I would suggest that you hand it back to her and tell her that it is torture truly not knowing the depth of its meaning at the time it was given and that you now realize that it is meaningless to her now and therefore is only salt in the wound she has inflected. Give to her and tell her that if she ever feels the need to express her feelings to you or for that matter anyone else, she should look at this card first and think long and hard before she gives anyone else a message such as this.

3. No more hugs...this is not productive and is only self serving on her part...it does not help you.

4. Tell your story to the key individuals that you want to keep in your life, the others don't and won't matter.

5. Can you move our or suggest that she move out. The separation will help you begin to heal and that is and should be your key objective now. Don't engage her in conversation and only communicate via text or email. This will give you a written record.

I am pulling for you and hoping that you see that you deserve someone who will cherish you and love you the way you need. She may have at one point but....she chose her own agenda i.e. day long hikes with the OM knowing full well the pain it inflicted on the one she took vows to love, honor and cherish....she is responsible for this wreck, not you. She chose to hurt you every time she engaged the OM after she learned of the pain she was causing.

God be with you my friend!!

This may have been discussed already but how did your sex life go through all this? The red flags have flown but this is most important.

I would like to suggest to you to google the signs a wife is cheating. Then print a list out, check the red flags and show it to her. Even better would be to list them here and let us comment or add to it.

What made me think of that is her badgering you with the controlling card. It may not be on the cheating list but it should be and it's one of the main excuses cheaters give for cheating. You should flat tell her the controlling card is always used by cheating wives and comes straight out of the cheaters handbook.

I have to add I feel like we failed you. I was sure if you followed the advise here your wife would do a 180 and fight to save her family. I am also furious with the Posom. His shit eating grin at you would have cost him his teeth if he pulled that on me. Haha, you're simply too civilized. Anyway his lifestyle indicates he is a lazy bastard a moocher and a philanderer. I don't think you have heard the last of him. I even wonder if he thinks he might end up living on your money.

Sorry for rambling. This is simply awful.

The guy lives off his wife's dime; he proves his manhood by wrapping up vulnerable women. Your wife will soon discover that she was nothing more than a blast to his ego, He's already scoping his next victim.

Conversely, you have taken the first--and the most difficuult--step on the path to real happiness.

We're here to assist.

Hard 180 no contact. In time you'll look back and wonder WTH was I worried about!!!!

To all the kind and generous people of SI, Thank you!

I'm feeling the love today, and I don't have the words to express my gratitude. You have been there for me from the beginning, and walked with me this very difficult path, holding my hand and guiding me along the way.

Today has been an exceptionally tough day for me. I've been feeling strong for a couple weeks now, but I knew that I would have some difficult days sooner or later. Your comments have been soothing, especially the ones that promise a bright future for me. It seems thats all I want to hear to make me feel better. The truth is that I suffered a horrific loss. I realize that my STBX treated me like shit for the past year, but that same woman was a devoted wife that cared for me and loved me with all her heart for the 12 years prior to this shit show. twelve years out weight one, but I don't say that to make it seem like I want my STBX back. I'm just sad to lose the family life that I have grown to love and depend on. I realize it will take time, but I'm suffering right now and it doesn't feel good.

I will never know what really happened, and that's ok. I'm gonna let karma take care of things for me. The best thing for me now is to walk away, and try to live the best life I can. I love it when people tell me things like: "you have taken the first--and the most difficuult--step on the path to real happiness." I want to be happy again, and I realize I've been so unhappy. And I will never be happy again if I didn't do something to change the shit situation I was in. You guys didn't fail me, Chappie. I did the right thing given the circumstances I was faced with. My hand was forced, I had no other choice other than to stay in limbo hell. I love the analogy that Bigger once told me. My situation is similar to the guy in Utah that amputated his arm, he didn't want to do it, but he did to save his life...

I will absolutely continue to post here, I need all the support that you guys can give me. Not sure if I'll start another thread elsewhere on the site, I will continue to post to this one for now.

Again, thank you all for the love and support. I will somehow get through this to a hopefully happier place.

-Arb

Like I posted earlier in your thread, arbuom, I am you 5yrs from now.

I don't think your WW had an exit affair, but I definitely think she is a walk away wife. In simple terms, lets say as a child you cherished the toy (let's say Woody from toy story) you always wanted, played with it exclusively for a very long time. One day a toy commercial comes on tv touting how much MORE fun this new toy is. Not only that, it will make you stronger, run faster, jump higher, make all your friends think you're the coolest person in the world and all the girls will swoon to you. This new toy, AMAZE-BALLS, promises to deliver so much improvement to your entertainment and overall quality of life you start imagining it and become hooked on the marketing ego kibbles. Now, you just HAVE to have this toy! You feel bad for old Woody because it doesn't excite you as much as AMAZE-BALLS promises, but there is history with Woody and instead of throwing Woody away you simply shelve him so you can go get AMAZE-BALLS because you still want Woody around but just not for now. Your intention is to come back to Woody at some point. Just not now because you want to check this strange new toy.

What your STBXW is going to find out after D is AMAZE-BALLS is a cheaply made piece of shit that's no better quality than the prank rubber dog shit shipped out of Taiwan. She going to find our that AMAZE-BALLS was designed to do one specific thing, separate the fools from their monies, or as serial cheaters do to get ass from the wayward for next to nothing, and it's all done with manipulative words. Ego kibbles. Marketing the new, strange, exciting, the validation that she DESERVES all of this because she is simply AMAZE-BALLS herself!

Then comes the realization that she has been had. Sadly for her, she will think back on old Woody she tossed to the shelf who was always there with her through thick and thin. She will come back to that shelf and realize Woody is now gone because another person found Woody and recognized how valuable Woody was for quality of material, craftsmanship in creation, durability to withstand the years, and still the ability to bring a smile to one's face.

What will be her reaction then? Shame, guilt, embarrassment? And over who, what, why? Where will her blame finger point? Will it point to a mirror reflection of herself?

I can tell you my XW thought that SHE was, and still is, the prize. I was to "fight" for her...win her back...do the pick me dance like a coked-up break dancer. The day she found out I was dating a new woman she was a complete mess. Her face was puffed from crying like Tammy Faye Bakker. She never really thought through the possibility of "What if old jduff finds another woman and marries her?" Waywards don't really think too far ahead in these situations. But, she knew right then that I no longer think she is the prize. She knew I really moved on. I no longer orbited the center of her narcissistic universe. I really wasnt going to wait around for her to decide what to do with me. Heck, it was SHE that never fought to win me back and that in itself was all the assurance I needed to know I made the right choice toward D.

So, don't be surprised your STBXW hasn't stepped up to the plate to own her shit and declared she will one day win you back. She still thinks highly of herself in this and is actively weaving the "poor me" rewrite as to how her life had taken a tragic turn in her marriage, sacrificing and old love to explore a new possibility. The rationale drips with such ridiculous drama that rivals Soap opera show scripting.

In the mean time, your goal should be to become the more authentic aurbom for you and your kids. You will be surprised how your life will improve when you strive to be more authentic. Your kids are going to notice and like it. They will tell you it's a side of dad they never saw before and they think it's really cool. It's like laying the seeds for good karma. And a happier, confident, authentic aurbom is going to get the attention of some truly quality women in your near future. You will come out if this just fine, for as long as you want that outcome.

Jduff

Thank you for that awesome post! I said it before and I will say it again, I’m overwhelmed with the generosity that I’m afforded here, you really lifted my spirits!

She will come back to that shelf and realize Woody is now gone because another person found Woody and recognized how valuable Woody was for quality of material, craftsmanship in creation, durability to withstand the years, and still the ability to bring a smile to one's face.

You are a good man, Jduff. I really appreciate the kind words, and the vote of confidence. I really am all those things. I’ve really really loved this woman and really cared for her. Treated her better that myself, and gave her everything I have. But she threw it all away.

You know, one thing that I never mentioned, that might shed more light on this mess, my STBX has had a completely sheltered and easy life so far. She grew up in a wealthy family, everything was provided for her, she always lived at home, her parents took care of everything. Then she met. I struggled in life and worked hard to get to the person I was when she met me. By that time, I was a senior exec in a startup that I helped found, and it was booming. I was living a life that was even better than the one that her family provided. She moved in, and again, everything was provided for her. I had a credit card ready for her the day she moved in. We lived in a beautiful place on the water over looking the marina. She’s never experienced hardship. So it’s really hard for someone like her to know how good she has it. And often time, people like that will not know the value of someone until they don’t have it anymore. I will admit (as part of being full disclosure), that she was always a devoted wife and never abused the situation. She’s always been a frugal spender, and has always looked out for the best interest of the family.

In light of the above, and to shed more light, there is a incident that she keeps bringing up as an example of my controlling behaviour. Early on in our marriage, I was working hard long ours, some weekends too, and she was working too. But her work schedule was 3 days a week (long 12 hour days), and she had two days off. The topic of laundry came up, and I asked her if she can do the laundry (I take care of paying all the bills, do that taxes, mow the lawn, take the garage out…etc), and she said that she didn’t like doing the laundry. We got in an argument, and in the end I said I didn’t want to talk about anymore, and that she will do the laundry. This happened 11 years go! And I guess i’m getting divorced because i made her do the laundry 11 years ago. When I read it now, I realize that it probably wasn’t the nicest thing to do, but as the time I felt overwhelmed with all the stuff that I was doing (which included running a startup), and her not wanting to the laundry just sounded like entitlement! And for the record, ever since the kids came, I’ve been doing the laundry.

And a quick update, I’m really excited to have found an absolutely stunning house to rent. I’m actually excited about it, and hope to get it for November 1st. I need to get out of here ASAP!

Thanks again for your words of wisdom, I’m really grateful for all that you’ve done for me.

-Arb

[This message edited by arbuom at 8:45 PM, October 5th (Thursday)]

Arb.

jduff once again hit it out the ball park.

I truly believe your stbxw is a passenger on a ship sailing towards a karma iceberg.

[This message edited by MidnightRun at 8:40 PM, October 5th (Thursday)]

So what will become of the marital home?

Selling?

In light of the above, and to shed more light, there is a incident that she keeps bringing up as an example of my controlling behaviour. Early on in our marriage, I was working hard long ours, some weekends too, and she was working too. But her work schedule was 3 days a week (long 12 hour days), and she had two days off. The topic of laundry came up, and I asked her if she can do the laundry (I take care of paying all the bills, do that taxes, mow the lawn, take the garage out…etc), and she said that she didn’t like doing the laundry. We got in an argument, and in the end I said I didn’t want to talk about anymore, and that she will do the laundry. This happened 11 years go! And I guess i’m getting divorced because i made her do the laundry 11 years ago.

This is pretty common. It falls under the umbrella of "rewriting the marital history". While she might not have changed the story or outright fabricated it, she most likely didn't give a shit about the incident these past 11 years anymore than you did.

But she doesn't want to be the bad guy. She doesn't want to be in the wrong. She needs to feel justified in her cheating. So she'll bring up something, ANYTHING, to make you out to be the monster she needs you to be in her mind and to others. Seen plenty of stupid examples. Husband made a disrespectful comment at Christmas dinner 8 years ago. Wife refuses to ever put the dishes up blah blah blah. Her line of thinking is not new and you're better off not listening to it.