SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

One more thing.

I know a guy who was mob affiliated as well and when you mentioned this about your FIL and her brothers I don't take this kind of statement likely.

You have something over your wife that she DOES NOT WANT GETTING OUT. Not just to her family but others.

If I were you I would get all of your evidence that you have from your PI and I would get it to someone that you can trust and that your wife has no idea who this individual is (and LEAVE no trail for her to find out---emails/texts/phone calls etc).

Let your wife know that if ANYTHING happens to you that measures have been taken and that this evidence will be put in her fathers hands, her brothers hands, her mothers hands, all of her friends hands, and someone at the local paper who might enjoy writing an interesting story.

Who knows what your wife is capable of if pushed into a corner and where ALL of her dirty laundry may be exposed to the people she would least want to know this.

Sounds crazy....this shit happens all the time!!!

double post

[This message edited by Booyah at 4:50 PM, October 7th (Monday)]

I really commend you for couching your decision process in the framework of what is best for your kids, but I think your assumptions about what is in their best interest may be incorrect.

What your kids need most is an emotionally present and stable parent to help them navigate the dangerous teen years when so many bad decisions are made. Just one such parent will suffice. Just one such parent present just half the time will suffice. Two distracted parents clearly at odds with each other over mysterious undisclosed conflicts is much worse. It will drive her further away from both of you and show her very negative role models for marriage that will have effects on her own choices. And the truth eventually will come out. Your sacrifice for them will be eclipsed by the “ick factor” of your staying.

The truth is that the best way to do right by your kids is to do right by yourself. Show them how a committed husband and father deals with the greatest harm that possibly can be done to a marriage and family and does it with dignity and integrity.

They will face their own trials and betrayals. Show them the high road and how to take it while preserving your self-respect. Be that role model for how to behave in adversity.

I will add one other aspect of the situation to be considered:

- what is your mental health going to be like after living with her and watching your back on a daily basis for 3 years ?

It is best to tell your daughters that you divorce.

Your daughters might need counseling, but they will heal and thrive with you and WW as co-parents.

Your kid is old enough to handle this, save her three years of a toxic environment and file papers.

If you want out do not wait, move on with your life and try not to flip out for your daughters sake.

Also deposit all your evidence with a lawyer.

Her family will not want this to come out. Saving face is massive for Italians. Honour is everything. You think you have the trump card but I can tell you her family would never want to let information about their daughter spread in the community. Threatening her that you have this over her head could be counterproductive. NEVER tell her or her family that you are threatening to expose the truth about her affairs. It will backfire on you. The information you have should be with a lawyer with clear instructions that should anything happen to you the information should be passed on to relevant people.

I get the issue about the children. I really do. What I think you should do is tell her that you will be divorcing and that you both need to work out a way which you can co-live until the 3 years is up. It’s not a healthy situation but you need to be able to have some type of arrangement you both agree on.

[This message edited by Mene at 5:46 PM, October 7th (Monday)]

Westway, man, I’m sorry this happened to you. You are getting a lot of good advice and seem to be taking it all in to forge your own path...

I can appreciate some of the unique dynamics of your “family”. On that front, how confident are you that dad and brothers won’t blame you to some degree? Or that she won’t start sowing seeds to paint you as the bad guy? The latter seems like bigger risk the longer this goes on, and could be very dangerous for you.

You are rightfully furious, but this is a touchy situation if I’ve ever seen one.

If you are going to tell her family, it is the way you say it that will determine how they react. Put the heat on her, not you. I would tell them that you want to protect your family and your wife’s family’s honour. She had been doing a, b and c and risking this being spread by third parties. Then let her family deal with her. They will go ballistic. The shame of one of their involved in infidelity especially if they don’t approve of certain ethnicities (I don’t get that but never mind) will ensure that they will make sure she stops this behaviour. That if you want a divorce it will be amicable and they won’t turn against you. They will not be your friend. Keep this in mind. Blood is thicker than water. They will want to keep it all in-house. To protect their grandchildren from community embarrassment, themselves and their honour. You will be forgotten once you divorce and they will blame you for allowing this to happen. They will be angry with her no doubt but they will be angry with you too for not noticing this and “allowing” this to happen. They will look for excuses to take some of the heat off their daughter. And you will have to take some of it. Perhaps I’ve been watching too much of the Sopranos but I think her parents are going to have mixed emotions and they will see you as part of the problem, too. I don’t envy your position.

[This message edited by Mene at 6:16 PM, October 7th (Monday)]

You don't fvck with the daughter and family of a man like my father in law. He is as connected as they come. All it would take is my father in law making some calls and these scrubs would disappear off the face of the earth.

I'm not sure if someone else might have already voiced concern, but based on what I know (mostly from movies lol) - is it even safe for you to divorce her without explaining the truth/evidence to her father prior?

I had a good friend in college whose father "stayed for the kids" and then divorced his wife after my friend left for college. My friend was devastated. In addition to the usual stress of starting college and being away from home, she had the added paradigm shift of no longer having a home to return to. She could go to her mother's (new) house, or her father's (new) house, but the home that was her anchor, the location of her childhood family unit, was gone. It messed up her first year of college in a huge way. Big negative impact on her grades.

In your first post you said you wanted opinions on the path you have chosen. Here is the path as I understand it. You will spend the next three years beating off, she will be let back in the bedroom but you won't touch her. She lives under constant threat of exposure. The second your youngest goes off to college, you divorce. Meanwhile you know to a certainty that she is already laying the foundation to royally screwing you over. Her father and brothers hate blacks. She is into blacks.

Dude, you KNOW this plan is not sustainable. You wait three years and nothing you say or do will mean squat. The family always supports the wayward wife. Always. They will come up with reasons why it really is your fault.

And your daughter is going to figure out something is horribly wrong soon. Pom poems aside, if she is college material she is not stupid and not blind. So what are you going to do? Lie to her for three years, then kick your wife's used ass to the curb? How's that gonna work.

Based on your description she is a total sociopath. Based on your description her family are sociopaths. So cut the cord now, while you have non stale evidence, while you have the moral high ground, while you have her reeling. Burn it all down now and get the fuck out of this insane relationship. Just do it. Just do it for fucks sake.

My 2 cents. I think one of our biggest jobs as a Father to our daughters is to show our daughters how they should expect to be treated, especially by men. That includes the hard lessons.

What lesson are you teaching your daughter by staying under such circumstances? That you’re a committed father? I can assure you that you can teach that lesson to your daughter as a divorced father who maintained his integrity and demonstrated his boundaries by divorcing her mother who maintained neither.

Booyah has some good points. As a parent of young adults, I'd be terribly disinclined to disrupt their stability right before college. It's a challenging time. They're out on their own, learning to manage their time, missing home. I'd think a good stable foundation would be in order. Pulling the plug now would give your youngster three years to process the change and achieve a new normal, all under your direct supervision so she's not acting out without an authoritative presence in her life.

If you're inclined toward divorce, you're most likely better off being able to leverage the adultery for a better settlement now. If you stay, your return to the marriage would most likely be viewed as tacit forgiveness, taking adultery off the table as grounds. And while you might save some money in child support, you might find those savings offset by additional years of alimony and whatever extra debt might be incurred over the next three years.

Plus that, it's just not fair to you to put your life on hold and live in limbo like that. It puts your healing off for another three years.

All in all, if you're already inclined to divorce, I don't see any real benefits in putting it off.

Sorry this happened to you.

File for D and have her served now while she's scared of exposure, you said she's not going to be scared for long therefore you need to act now to use it as a tool for negotiations, use that to your advantage for a quick D, after the D is finalized tell your children and her family in a sanitized way (they'll want to know why you are filing for D), keep your integrity and honesty and don't lie to your children, they will respect you for it.

File now to protect your kids, your assets and yourself. You need to do background checks o. The OM and see if there is any risk.

Anytime there are multiple OM you need to be more vigilant.

I would also expose

Welcome. I read this thread with interest. I'm relatively new here (as in registered) but I've been moping around feeling sorry for myself and reading posts for about a month. I'm sorry your here, but I'm glad you're getting something positive from the experience. I know I am.

Observations:

1) You seem sensitive to be called a racist just for the fact that the AP(s) are another skin color. Don't be. You don't seem racist to me, this is just a fact about her and her preferences. With that said, there are definitely women who fetishize men from other races just like there are men who do the same to women of other races. It's just a thing, like a favorite porn genre. That should not make this any MORE humiliating than it is. It's plenty humiliating no matter what race the other guy(s) are. I think most men, certainly I would ask the same questions you are asking -- if she always had this preference, why did she marry me?

2) You are concerned about reputation and your daughter's long term reaction. You can count me in for the Divorce Now crowd. Not from any sense of vengeance or anger (although I admit your post made me angry on your behalf). Personally, I think your wife can't be trusted more than a few weeks at most before she turns the narrative around on you, invents crazy shit to turn people on you, and tries to fuck your life up royal, including your relationship with your daughters. I've seen this happen. Coasting through life waiting to divorce? It sucks. It's an awful life and just gives the WW more time to fuck your mental health up terribly. Your child is plenty old enough to know what's going on. Someone has to provide her with an example of a mature adult is, and that's YOU now.

3. This is a pretty complex and hateful mess you're in. The best way to extricate yourself with a minimum of damage is to document, document document. Request her phone and email passwords. Keep a voice activated recorder with you at all times. Request for her to get a polygraph. Request a very detailed timeline of her sexual activities. Make her VERY aware you have been tested for STDs and expect her to be, too, and not just one time. The Job has to be over too.

4. I think you're being smart about a lot of stuff. You seem to be thinking it through and taking all the logical steps (mostly, but I've already mentioned what I personally disagree with). Last point: you got a lot of anger in you, Westway, and damned if I blame you for it. I would be making tons of mistakes carrying that kind of anger around with me (3 Dudes in 6 months? Jesus!). HOWEVER, you seem to be pushing back to people on here that are really trying to lay out their advice as plainly as possible. You might not agree with it, I doubt you'll agree with even 80% of it right now-- but all of it is heartfelt and comes from a similar place of pain from everyone who has gone through it. I wish you well, and please, please keep us updated. Your story is very compelling.

Wow alot of BH would be grateful to have a FIL who can take care of OM/OMs professionally.

Wow a lot of BH would be grateful to have a FIL who can take care of OM/OMs professionally.

Except for the fact who will FIL believe? Westway who is telling the truth or his daughter who weaves some tale of Westway being an abuser and a womanizer or some such. He'll believe her unless Westway exposes to him WITH proof before she can begin to concoct her tale. I would not want to be in his shoes right now. Having a wife stay true to you only under threat of exposure will lead to her getting out ahead of this while Westway thinks he's "protecting" her, he'll end up pushing up daisies courtesy of FIL.

[This message edited by RubixCubed at 12:28 AM, October 8th (Tuesday)]

For the Italians the family is sacred. 'Bella figura' is a way of life.

When they find out that their daughter/sister has behaved in a horrible way, they will be initially upset with her, but they will forgive her, protect her and support her.

Maybe the best approach is to meet with her parents and brothers and explain that you are divorcing. The circumstances of their daughter's actions that led to you asking for a divorce if made public will bring shame and a loss of face to the family.( in their eyes anyway).

For this reason you have made sure the evidence is securely locked with a lawyer as you are worried about the impact on your reputation and your daughters.

Assure them that you do this for the benefit of all. If they want to see the evidence, let them.

If you expose her in a controlled way and make it all about family reputation to be protected, I think is the best way forward.

Just bear in mind she is already working on damage control.

In light of this new information, I would like to retract my former statement. Staying for the kids may not be a good idea in your situation. My situation is a bit different, in that me and my WW get along just fine and are a great team (as far as roommates and co-parents go). My FIL is not a mob affiliate, he’s just a lazy bum with no connections at all.

I agree with the others who say that you need to get out ahead of this situation, before it gets ahead of you. Consult an attorney to see what the best way forward is to protect yourself, your kids, your assets, etc. Try to find a way to not piss off the family!