SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Please see a lawyer. You said in your state adultery is grounds for Divorce. This is completely different and separate from being an At Fault state for adultery.

Yes you can file and D because your spouse cheated. However.... very few states assign blame/punishment for cheating. These two things are very separate, and different. Educate yourself. Protect yourself.

Also if he has not cheated, he should be willing to jump at the chance to prove he is clean by getting STD tested, and taking a poly.

You are correct. It's not cut and dry. Keep posting.

Be strong. This is not your fault. You are a great wife and mother. Don't think anything otherwise.

We support you if you want to R with a remorseful spouse.

We support you in D.

We support you while you figure things out.

This is your life. You get to gather as much as you need to whether it's to confirm if he is cheating, legal advice. How to survive during this time. We support you.

Is hiring a PI not an option? That would be the best way to gather info that's admissible in court. Or your lawyer might have a PI they use??

Hiring a PI is going to have to wait a little bit longer for financial reasons. I've been a SAHM for the last 5 years and just recently went back to work. I'm having to be my own PI for the present time although I think I have done awesome figuring out who the OW is and many details about her considering she lives two states away from me. :)

I've been following your story and I also filed for divorce against an alcoholic. By being EXTREMELY patient I was able to get full custody of the kids and basically had him begging me to not go after supervised visitation.

The courts do not take addiction lightly (At least in my area). I was petrified though because joint custody is AUTOMATIC which meant it would be a fight to get sole.

The best thing you can do is DOCUMENT DOCUMENT DOCUMENT. Buy yourself a planner and start writing EVERYTHING down. What he drinks, how much, his behavior when it gets abusive, how long it goes on for. Write everything down that you can.

Write out all the interactions YOU have with kids, doctors appoints, parent teacher conferences.

You need to paint yourself as the self-sacrificing parent trying to hold it all together.

I was brutally underhanded in my divorce (trust me, it was very warranted).

I pretended to be sympathetic to all of his "addictions" via text messages and got him to admit he really needed help. Screenshot of his admission, BAM. I did this repeatedly. I stole his phone and got screenshots of where a buddy of his wanted to know how he kept passing the pee tests at work and my H knew exactly what they test for and where to buy the kits at. I even got recording of him being completely abusive to me in front of our kids, even though many claim its illegal and in some states it is in my state it is NOT so I did that too.

When I finally finally had enough of the cheating, the lies, the abusive drunken behavior I calmly told him that for the past year I've saved screenshots, got video of his drunken rampages, and wrote out everyday I knew he was drinking. I told him it was time for him to leave and what my conditions were. I told him if he ever attempted to go after my kids for custody he would be in for the fight of his life and I would hesitate to forward every bit of evidence I had to his family.

He gave me every single thing I asked for. Its hard, it requires patience but I don't regret a second of it.

I wanted to update on where we are at today:

We are wonderful co-parents. For about a year, he went totally off the rails into drunken craziness, but he finally realized he was going to lose it all or even die. He started seeing a psychologist, got on meds, did a few AA mtgs and has done a lot to prove himself a stable parent. Likewise, he can see the kids whenever he wants. He hasn't gone after custody, but I will be far more willing to negotiate at this point because I know he has done so much for them. he is slowly building up that trust. I know he wants to change and I know its going to be a life long struggle so unitl my babies are much older I will have to keep my eye out for his behavior and modify accordingly.

Don't hesitate to pm me, alcoholism is an entirely different beast than what most on here are dealing with.

Thank you Cottonballs! It is truly a beast as you appropriately called it! I made a recording years ago of him being violent and verbally abusive and he found it and destroyed it. I was using a camcorder (tells you how long ago it was..does anybody even use those anymore? Lol)... but he never said a word about finding it. He just took the tape and set the camcorder pointing out a window and recorded over my proof with HOURS of nothing but the wind blowing outside... it's almost evil and spiteful the way he acts.

Update on current situation: like I said in my earlier post he went back to work this week. According to phone records he hasn't contacted OW on that particular phone. He claimed before he left that he told her they "couldn't be friends anymore" but I find it hard to believe they cut off all contact cold turkey. I mean, at least throw in a phone call or two to make it believable! I tried tracking him today and he has turned off the location services on his phone. I also got an interesting piece of mail today that said he cashed out his 401k last month... we have a joint bank account and it certainly didn't get put in there. Which leads me to believe he has another bank account somewhere or he's just spending cash so there's no way to pick up a paper trail. I'm thinking I may be taking out a loan soon to hire a PI.

ake sure you have a copy of the 401k info, that is a marital asset and may come into play in a D.

Yep document the 401k withdrawal, you are entitled to half of it. More than likely he will have to pay you back your portion .

Since your husband knows that you have caught him and you expect that he will not divorce easily I would do the following, in this order:

1) Make initial/introductory appointments with several good divorce attorneys. Many attorneys offer free 30 minute introductory appointments. You need informed guidance more than anything now.

When choosing divorce attorneys to interview include attorneys that he might use. If you have disclosed the issues to them they may then not be able to represent him.

2) Make a decision about an attorney very soon. Since your husband has cashed out his 401(k) your options are being reduced. Any assets you have a marital property and either of you could do most anything with them until the time that the divorce petition is filed. You need competent legal assistance immediately.

3) Don’t hire a PI now. You have confirmed who “she” is and that there is a relationship of some sort. Adultery is very difficult to prove today and in the end it usually doesn’t have any bearing on the divorce, In any event the PI would need to be from your husband’s work/affair state. In the unlikely event you attorney sees a benefit to hiring a PI he/she is in a better position to select a good one there

4) I would get a VAR (Best Buy, Amazon etc.). Learn how to use it, Use long life lithium batteries, and keep it on your person when in your husbands presence to record any outbursts or threats.

5) Since your intent is to divorce anyway a VAR in his truck is of little value. Recording can be a stae felony. States are either one party, or two (or all) party states. What this means is that one party to the conversation must authorize the recording or all parties to the conversation musst authorize the recording. In a one party state if you are present you provide the one party authorization. If you just hide the recorder in his truck without his authorization and you’re not sitting in the truck you have committed a felony. This is why if you do this you DO NOT reveal where any information collected this way came from. Since his truck travels through three sta tes there is a remote chance that a federal felony could be committed also.

6) GPS tracking is wonderful, but I don’t see how it benefits you now and placing a GPS tracker on a vehicle can violate law depending on who owns the vehicle.

Hang in there and don‘t loose your temper.

Wow! Thank you Meers for your wealth of knowledge! I had no idea about felony and possible federal felony! You have given me much to think about. I was considering just putting the VAR in the truck while he was here at home and not traveling. I can't risk it being gone for two weeks and potentially being found. He had been talking to her every day he was at home so I have a good chance of getting a conversation while he's home. And the use of it is not so much for use in court as it is for my own curiosity. I need something more concrete than phone records to convince my mind of the affair. My heart is already well aware of it but I need to hear him talking to her. It might just be my own morbid curiosity..but I will definitely not be revealing where I got the info from! He is just the type of person that would try to get me charged with a crime!I am calling in the morning to get an appt with a lawyer.

Not to get you too far into the weeds but if you are interested the book below by Emily Miskel is available on Amazon. It’s an easy read, highly informative, and written by a divorce court judge.

I don't think I may post the Amazon url here but you can find it by searching in the Books category for “Interception: A Practical Guide to Wiretapping and Interception Laws for Civil and Family Law Attorneys Kindle Edition”

Emily offers this on Kindle at no cost.

I don’t know her personally but a friend was her advisor when she was an undergraduate engineering student at Stanford. Emily later received her law degree from Harvard and is now a Family Court judge in Colin County, Texas.

Anything new Dixie?

I'm going to be laying low in here for a bit for fear of my electronic devices being compromised. I'm not sure if there are any rules that I need to follow in order to "lay low" here so anyone please let me know protocol for that (if any)....

Dixie, change your password. You can still PM folks. Request a change to the email linked to your SI account.

Do you use a laptop? Do you think the security compromise has gone as far as a key logger?

I'm still around 😶. Things aren't any better. He still claims to have cut off all contact with her but he also still has the pay-as-you-go phone in his truck. He's gone right now to work but my intention is to take it out of his truck when he gets home. If he asks me for it then he will know I have once again caught him in a lie. He also claims to not know OW last name...so he is protecting her. It's like he cares more about her and her feelings than mine. Everything I know about her I found out with just the phone number he was calling her on. I am second guessing my own information because I don't know for a fact that I am digging up info on the correct person. I could be finding out a ton of information on someone while the real person I need to know info on is just out there still going about her life....I did text her on Thanksgiving. I told her that I wanted to wish her and my husband a happy thanksgiving.🙃 She didn't respond... I have not attempted to call her bc if she was smug with me I don't know that I wouldn't attempt to go through that phone after her! I'm also afraid of it feeling like it's "him and her against me" (which I guess it already is since he's protecting her so I can't find her)...

I'm just really frustrated at this point!!

What did your lawyer say?

Lawyer said I had a very good case if/when I decide to make my move. He agreed that trying to prove the affair would be a waste of time without some pretty solid evidence. I have enough evidence to prove alcoholism so that's the angle he would use when it comes to custody of my babies. It's not going to be cheap to get out. 😕

If you make significantly less that your husband, in some states, you can petition the court to have him pay for all or part of your lawyer fees.

You can also check out the process for getting a restraining order if he is badgering you when he comes home about the house, the kids and everything you're supposedly not doing. You might be able to get an RO if you are harassed.. depends on the area. At that point, all you would need to do is record things, and use an RO to keep him out of the house and get temporary orders for custody and whatnot.