SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

So it was suggested I post here after I made a couple posts on dead bedrooms and surviving infidelity on reddit. I'm admittedly going to just paste what I posted on reddit, but i'm looking for advice and i'll answer whatever if there's gaps or something doesn't make sense.

I always get self conscious about writing stuff here and probably the reason i've spent more time lurking then posting..but figured I should be posting this because it was finding this subreddit years ago that helped in some ways in the least to make me not feel so alone in the situation. You can look through my post history to get an idea of the background, but the short of it is i'm a 38M HL/NL married to a 41F LL for about 15 years with two grade school age kids. When we got together everything was fine in the relationship, and the sex was a non issue and after getting married things immediately nosedived with a long list of reasons..but the solutions were nothing more than moving goal posts that wore me down and if only I moved on to tackling yet another things would certainly improve. She moved out a few weeks ago after coming out as asexual back in December, i'd stopped trying years ago but despite no instance of recent effort on my part was told this is who she was and she was sexually traumatized. About 7+ years ago we started therapy to try and address the issue and spent a couple years going to weekly sessions adding another therapist after about a year that specialized specifically in sexual issues. The situation only got worse from there and the last 7 years have been completely sexless, despite having mild depression most of my life I finally reached a point where I realized I needed medication to keep me afloat, and really that and my kids are the only things that have really kept me falling apart at points. Moving forward to the new year coming around and my wife seems restless and decides to start visiting old friends out of state, one of whom is currently going through a divorce and after spending enough time informs me that they had sexual issues as well and you men expect to much sexually, it's traumatizing and I want a divorce. The pain of everything that's gone on to this point in our relationship has hurt, but this time around I feel like it was more of mourning the loss of the family as a whole. So as I begin to process things I started trying to get various things in order as time allows, at the moment she is currently off work and nearly everyday I get home with the kids she's left to go out, barricaded herself into her bedroom and on a few occasions has become so irate with the kids or myself i've had to take them to my parents house to get them away from what's going on. During this time I hesitant to reach out to anyone aside from my brother and his spouse, my mother's currently dealing with cancer and I felt like I didn't want to burden them. So on one of the weekends I was off she decided to go out and hang with old friends, I was feeling a bit depressed and decided to try calling my brother and chat for a bit, after some meandering chit chat he told me he had something to tell me, that his wife wanted me to know. I kind of sat there for a second like time stopped, and he lays out to me "You may not want to drag your feet on this divorce, and you may want to contact mom and dad", he then proceeded to tell me that a few years ago when our families were hanging out my wife and sister in law were sitting around just bitching about things when my told her "If maskedwarmth and I ever get divorced i'm going to take him for everything he has". My heart starts racing and i'm having the first panic attack i've had since my teens, a comment like that was so uncharacteristic of my wife I couldn't believe it, and I asked him if this was a joke, did she seem serious when she said it? By the time I got off the phone with him he'd assured me that it was, that it had taken my sister in law by surprise and she really hadn't wanted to share it but she saw/heard what was going on and wanted to make sure I had an idea of what may be coming. I ended up calling my parents shortly after a sobbing mess, embarrassed and hurt, apologizing for laying this on them since they already had so many things going on. That's when after I started calming down my mother mentioned a comment my wife had made to her a few years prior about how she was jealous of a cousin of mine who'd recently gotten divorced for having the strength to do it..my mom was really put off by it for obvious reasons but just opted not to share cause it seemed maybe irrelevant. At this point things are starting to click together and i'm starting to see an image of my wife that I always had suspicions about but whenever confronted about them was told that I was paranoid, that I had trust issues, and she's not that type of person, how could I ever think that of her. So as last month continued moving I kept trying to collect info about bills, taxes, etc and her behavior continued to get more and more erratic, every chance she had she was gone and she wanted to get out of our house so bad and how much she hated it there. She managed to find a place staying with a friends older mother who didn't want much for rent and seemingly needed some companionship and a hand around the house. So a few weeks ago we sit down with the kids after she gets back from a night out with friends and tell them what's going on, our one child is a bit distraught and goes to hug his mother, the other just seems to be taking it and only starts to crack more when she hears mom is taking the dog with her. Less than a week later she's moving out, sooner then expected but I had to work super early shifts at the hospital and it would have required her being home by 2am for the kids. The day comes that she's moving out, my parents have swung by to pick up the children and as they're getting loaded into their car my wife doesn't even give them hugs goodbye. A little less than a week after she's moved out I finally met with a lawyer and got the processed started, she seems more than happy to drive out my lawyer and sign everything to get the process moving. She doesn't try contacting the kids when they're with me, and has only spent a couple days with them which my children inform me are spent sitting around while mom excercises and sits on her phone, it seems like doesn't have much interest in the kids outside of maintaining her appearance(there's more details than that i'm not getting into). Since she's moved out i've slowly been transitioning to feeling more comfortable with the situation and trying the best to keep the peace, i've gone so far as giving her groceries when the kids were going over cause she was tight on cash and didn't have anything there, even sending her a bit of money a couple occasions when she went negative, keep this money as forward on a mutual bill we haven't been able to separate yet. I've had more than a few people tell me that was stupid, I'm trying to keep the peace and in part it would have an impact on the kids..that's what i'm telling myself and it's not necessarily untrue. So all this stuff kind of came to a head the end of last week. She'd taken the kids for a couple days and I had a long shift one of them anyway. I got home from work that day and i've really tried making the most of my kids free time, cause actively missing them doesn't help and i've got a lot of activates/hobbies i'm usually interested in pursuing, one of them being music so I get the computer set up, turn it on and start wiring things up. I keep getting annoying prompts for sync issues with my wife's icloud account so I started tinkering around trying to resolve it and end up in photos, and if you think you know what's coming next you're right. Even though she cleared the computer out before she left some stuff managed to slip through the cracks and i''m confronted with literally hundreds of pictures and videos some very graphic of her cheating on me over the last few months with a mutual friend. I went through the process of saving everything I could though it seems it will likely be useless legally. I've been absolutely devastated this weekend, and I feel like I pissed away the last 15 years of my life married to the image she was projecting. She brought the kids home the day after I ran across this stuff and I kept my cool, didn't confront her about and tried to remain normal for my kids. There is more going on that I might share as time goes on but I wanted this post to stand as a message to people who are trying to work through this stuff that might have similar issues. Part of me is glad I worked as hard as I did to try and fix/resolve things cause in the event these things didn't come to light I may have felt regret for not trying harder. The second part is to trust your gut though, if something doesn't feel right don't let somebody turn that around you; I don't mean to say your gut instinct is always right but it should be ignored. Thanks for reading this long ass post, and if it even helps one person avoid pain it's worth it.

Hi, sorry you found yourself here…

Cheating with a mutual friend is called double betrayal. Is your mutual friend married? Did you tell your STBXWW that you found out?

Be careful with those photos and videos, don’t share them with anyone or you can get in legal trouble.

And get tested for STDs. It’s quite possible your mutual friend was not the only affair during your marriage.

Others will come along with good advice.

Your ex seems NPD. That isn't going to make D easy. Just ask Barcher. Hopefully she's enamored and distracted enough by her new boy toy to let things slip. If able I'd keep the information you now have in your back pocket. She's going to try to use your kids against you. Dont play into that. Kids realize more than they get credit for. Get legal advice and proceed with all haste to get yourself quickly legally separated. Don't be afraid to over pay her to go away if that keeps things moving quickly. If she digs in you'll just lose money on the legal fees.

[This message edited by grubs at 5:50 PM, Tuesday, February 22nd]

Can you tell us what state you live in (if you're in the U.S.)? Divorce laws and custody laws differ greatly from state to state.

Do you want full custody of the kids? There are some states that have come a long way from the days when the woman was automatically granted custody. If you live in a state that puts the needs of the children first, then documenting everything you've described is crucial-- particularly if you can get an audio or audio/visual recording of her yelling at the kids or treating them so badly that you need to remove them from the situation.

Are the photos of adultery you found date/time stamped? If so, you could correlate them against what was happening in the kids' lives at that time-- i.e., if she was off having sex and missing a school function, or leaving you in a situation where you unexpectedly couldn't get work done, or whatever, that becomes valid evidence of her fitness to have custody.

What you need most is a really good lawyer. You need to ask family/friends/coworkers for recommendations, find online forums for your geographic area, etc.; use whatever means are at your disposal, but find a really good divorce lawyer, not just the first one someone recommends. I cannot stress this enough. If your wife is actively seeking to take you for all she can, rather than trying to achieve a settlement that's fair for both sides, the difference between you having a 'good' lawyer and a 'great' lawyer will impact you and your children for a decade or more. It's work doing the research, and it's unpleasant, and it's easy to procrastinate or avoid; you can't afford those luxuries right now. You need to be in cave-man-with-a-big-club mode: someone/something is threatening you and your children, and there's no one else around to fight for you. Dig deep, find the necessary courage and motivation, and find a great divorce lawyer ASAP. Once you do, stop following legal advice you get on this forum, and trust the lawyer. You would be shocked at the number of things you can do or say in the next few weeks and months that can be used against you in ways that you could never imagine; you need that expert advice to keep from screwing yourself over.

Beyond that, there are a few pieces of advice that you should follow, that are true in every situation like yours:

1. Drink a lot of water. Like, a lot. However much you think you need to drink, double that.
2. Stay away from alcohol and weed. If you absolutely must drink alcohol, don't drink enough to get buzzed. But really, this is a crucial time for you and your children, suck it up and just avoid it altogether.
3. Get at least 8 hours of sleep, 7 at the minimum. Solid sleep, not waking up every 10 minutes. If you can't do that for more than three days in a row, call your doctor and leave a message explaining that you are under enormous stress from a family situation, and need something to help you sleep. Your doctor should either find a way to quickly squeeze you in for a visit, or else phone in the prescription to your pharmacy without a visit. These days, any decent doctor realizes the importance of sleep, and how damaging just a week of bad sleep can be, so unless you've got an old, inflexible MD who doesn't keep up with the times, this just shouldn't be a problem.
4. Move your body. Exercise if you can, even if it's 'just' taking a walk. If for some reason you can't exercise, then at least stand up from your desk once and hour and pace for a minute, stretch, etc. If you're doing this, it's a great time to finish any water left in your glass, and refill the glass for the coming hour. But actual exercise will be enormously helpful, if you can manage it.

I'm sorry that you're going through this. Many people on this site have experienced similar levels of betrayal, and can relate to how you must be feeling; many of them have healed and moved on, and over time, you may find their stories to be inspirational.

Good luck, and remember we're here for you; if you just need emotional support, rather than advice, then come right out and ask for it directly-- we're pretty decent at that, too.

I'm going to try and fill in any of the blanks. First the person she was cheating with isn't married, it was an old boyfriend of hers. I actually found a message she sent him back when we were in therapy talking about a dream she had fooling around with him etc and at the end said not to mention it to me cause i'd freak out. I confronted her about all those years ago and was told I was over reacting, it was nothing, the therapist we had said the same thing (the therapist was the same one she saw as a teenager going into her 20's, don't know why I ever thought that was a good idea). I have no intention of sharing an explicit photos of her, I see them as inescapable evidence of cheating and yes they are time stamped and I will be sharing all this info with my lawyer. I also since the beginning of january have been documenting the going ons of each day with times when it comes to her actions and the kids. She is in her own place no so i'm not going to be able to get any video of those interactions; I have thought about recording the audio of our interactions in person if I can find a way and my lawyer says to go for it. Right now she does seem enamored with this guy and seems keen to get this divorce done with cause she will be getting half of my 401k. For assets we divided things everything prety amicably before she moved out, truth is we didn't really have much. We sold our house end of last year to move into my parents old house which is in a trust and not owned by either of us (my parents were thinking ahead), the money we made from the house we split down the middle and she pissed through roughly 14k in less than 2 months with nothing to really show for it (some was used on the affair partner, and I have one invoice at the moment to prove though it's only for $100). When it comes to custody we'd initially agreed on 50/50 (no one pays alimony, no on pays child support..obviously that may change now), my lawyer informed when he was taking down the initial information that that the primary part would be irrelevant but he'd include it if I wanted... I told him not to worry about it then cause none of this had come to light yet. I did talk to her about a week later and mentioned it may need to be 60/40 for me to be primary, she agreed and didn't bat an eye. My belief is that she's so consumed with what's going on right now that she cares for the kids to the extant she doesn't wish to appear a bad mother, my STBX's mother talks to her frequently and assumes she's abandoning the kids fueling my STBX's anxiety. After I made this post on reddit yesterday I ended up getting a message from her asking me to call not text which is unusual for her and I thought for sure she was going to tell me about the person she's seeing..not confessing she's been seeing for a few months at least, but that she started seeing him after we signed the initial paperwork. To my surprise it wasn't, she was crying abut how physical therapy she's having for her toe that got smahd at work last year isn't going well, she's not able to move it sob sob because she wasn't supposed to be driving around, excercising crazy etc (i laughed inside and smiled for the first time after finding the pics/videos). She then informed she has no money, the person she's staying with may be selling the house soon and when she gets back to work she doesn't know how she'll be able to see the kids (she has been taking them partial weekends for the last two weeks but informed she's got a bunch of plans in the city this weekend and can't). At this point I decided to resume the roll of my chumpy self, told her we'd find a way and we just need to establish a routine. She then informed me the plans of her moving close by might not happen, it could be to expensive and she'd have to move even further than she currently (currently about 15 miles, her next suggested location 35 miles). I inform her that we can figure it out but she'll probably see them less. Without much hesitation as if it was planned she says she may have to across the border into the next state cause she could get paid more despite the increased cost of living putting her about 70-90 miles away depending on route, same thing you'd probably see them even less.

Get an agreement signed and filed as soon as possible. The luster has a habit of wearing off when they have to live in it without your money and assistance.

Ugh. That's rotten. I'm so sorry.
There's a lot of information to be found in The Healing Library to get you started reading and thinking about what you're going to do next. Your WW seems to be in quite a hurry, and since she doesn't know that you know about her cheating, she might agree to a settlement more favorable toward you in order to get it done. I'd take advantage of that. Put what YOU want in the settlement and see if she goes for it. Sometimes, when cheaters are anxious about their AP, they agree to things they wouldn't have agreed to. If you're in a state where adultery factors in, you can use your evidence or let her think you're going to use your evidence to bargain for what you want. Let your attorney handle that part if it comes to it. You don't want to be accused of extorting her. Cheaters might talk a good game about not being afraid to face the music in court, but they don't like it when the AP get subpoenaed. All in all, I'd say to make sure you've got a good attorney and then listen to what they tell you.

In terms of the emotional side of things, you've got TIME to process all that. It's a tough assignment and it sucks to go through, but you'll get through it. Just believe in yourself and in what you're trying to accomplish. Fifteen years is a long time, but you're still a young guy with a lot of life left ahead. Just remember to breathe through the stress. Keep posting. You'll get lots of support here.

I'm very sorry you're here. Your W looks like a lousy partner, but that's her. I understand that you've been beaten down and don't feel good about yourself, but your W's problems are about her, not about you. You did not fail - she did.

I suggest you delve into the D/S forum here - Divorce/Separation. I expect you'll find a lot of good info and good support for yourself from the SIers there.

One thing that I noticed in your posts is that you seem willing to give in a lot. Can you limit talking with your W to kids? Can you just tell her and maintain a boundary of 'her finances are her problem'?

I think the problem you may have with custody is that she wants to limit her time with your kids, which means you'll have to do the bulk of the child care and go through the hassle of collecting the CS she owes you.