Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums Infidelity/Extramarital Affairs/Jealousy Alpha - rollercoasting #3

OK, taking on board your comments here is take two:

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Hello W,

I'd like us to work out what time we'll each spend with the children in coming weeks. I'm missing out on their company right now, and they, mine. We need to review things, and here's my proposed plan going forward from this Monday (23rd March) - feel free to suggest any changes:

Monday: I won't see the kids on this day.

Tuesday: I'll pick them up from school, take them to my parent's house and have tea with them - back to yours for 6pm.

Wednesday: I won't see the kids on this day.

Thursday: I'll take the kids to school/pick them up from school, and bring them back to yours.

Friday: I'll pick them up from school and spend the night with them at my parent's house.

Saturday: I'll take D5 to ballet and spend the day with them - back to yours at tea time.

Sunday: I won't see the kids on this day.

Whilst this is a difficult time, it's important for the kids to spend quality time with both of us. If we can agree a plan, it will hopefully benefit us all. Please could you let me know your thoughts about it by replying to this email when you can over this weekend. Thank you. Alpha.

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I hope that is finding the right balance between being firm and not sounding too pushy. At the moment my wife 'appears' to be very angry with me. I understand the need not to be a pushover or an on call doormat but at the same time I don't want to go 'too hard, too soon' and do more damage after the bad weekend I had last weekend. Comments welcome. As ever, thank you all for helping so much. I appreciate it.

Well, with only one or two word changes, and obviously names in place, I have just sent the email to W. I don't expect a reply this evening, but I will post the response (providing I get one) when it arrives.

Hmm I installed an IM app a while back. It uses phone contacts to add 'friends'. My W and OM (cos I got his number when BD'd) are both online. I haven't really used this app but opened it to have a nosey (I signed up to Twitter today, incidentally). The IM app shows the last time a user was online. I looked and noticed that both W and OM were online last at the very same minute.

Coincidence? Maybe. Who knows?
Funnily enough although I have had a pang of sadness about this, the overriding emotion is one of 'what will be will be'. Although I love W dearly, I guess this is the first stages of detaching - realising I'm not in control of her actions and there's nothing I can do. Actually understanding that, grasping it on a fundamental level, is quite empowering as it shows I'm not limited in my emotions by the actions of this one person. Like DB and DR say, I can.choose how to respond to emotion. In this case there isn't an awful lot of emotion but what there is I'm choosing to deal with through indifference.

Come what may my life will go on. I am a good person, most people think funny and witty, and I will always have my beautiful children to love, and the rest of my life to live.

Maybe this has come from beginning to toughen up in response to my W's actions, and maybe it won't last (I'm sure there will be wobbles) but right now I feel quite calm and at peace with things.

Feeling a lot better and in control now, the question comes to mind again: should I expose wife's A at her work place? Previously I had feared the consequences but now I don't feel like that. I feel like turning the tables from all the suffering I've endured. Not so much do I have revenge in mind, just a clearing of the air, getting the truth out. Is it worth it though?

I've started to read 'connecting through yes' by jack ito. Has anyone read this? It seems like it is going to be an excellent book, one that deals (I'm guessing) with what people here called validation. I've never explicitly seen that word in MWD's book so maybe this new one can provide some more insight for me.

If it can provide a consequence and closure you should. Should you just be a snivering, suffering victim? No.

You have no reason to do this, and most likely it won't do anything but cause more drama. I wouldn't lie if someone asked but I wouldn't be a tattle. I exposed my H's affair (it was someone who worked for the same company but they are "equals" so the company didn't care)

Well I slept on that idea and have decided I won't do it. I suppose it was the mix of feeling better and seeing them both on that IM app together at the same time. That could have been coincidence really, and at this point what does it matter: she has lied repeatedly, slept with him repeatedly, admitted she got 'raged' when he went cold on her, that she was 'obsessed' with him, so it would have been an almighty coincidence that she magically stopped seeing him the day I confronted her. Though imagining her with OM makes my skin crawl, I think at some point yesterday a penny dropped in my mind and my thoughts changed; I no longer feel so emotionally bound to her. I know things must run their course and what will be will be. Sure, I will do things to aid the process where I can but I'm not in control of it so why worry so much. By the time we are done one way or the other I am going to be such a fantastically new and improved person that it would be her loss. That said, thinking of my children being brought up in a broken home is heart wrenching. I do want the best for them in life and this is not the greatest start is it?

Hi Alpha,

The feeling you have is not easy at all to bear specially when there are children involved, but having said that you should focus as you said to improve yourself and do the best for your children. I have to say that you should not direct your anger or negative feelings towards your wife because she's the woman you had 2 children with and you just need to let the course run its course.

Continue to pursue a parental plan, focus on you and your children, and hopefully with time there will be major positive for you.

Alpha, I think the parenting plan is all important right now. And I would just keep that central and stop your mind when it starts going onto 'exposure.'

Lobbing in a grenade like exposure at work is going to work against agreeing a reasonable parenting plan. And whilst you might hope it would destabilise the A. The fact is, things probably need to run their own course in their own time.

So, I think you're right not to go down that avenue. Best to focus on agreeing a plan for the kids that works for everyone, and focusing on you and them. I thought your email was fine, and hope your W comes back with a reasonable response.

Have a good day Alpha!