I've been on this bb a while and generally just check in sporadically on folks whose sistchs I know from before, don't have a lot of time to spend on the bbs, but the title of your thread caught my eye. As onceuponatime mentioned my H and I didn't have kids either (mutual choice) but unlike your H and hers, who seem to fit the "droplet" example of a WA described in Sally Conway's book about MLC, mine is completely off the map -- moved cross-country 2+ years ago to be w/ OW2 (old high school gf) and her kid, he has settled down w/ them and only contacts me for business reasons. He left abruptly early 2004 (ILYBINILWY) and never looked back. Like you, 'til then, I thought I had a wonderful happy M for 15+ years, all Ms have issues but I didn't think anything that would break us up and certainly not like that. Like you I'm from a no-D family (but H's parents had split after about 15 years of M). He finally filed for D a few months ago and though I don't believe in D I saw it was inevitable so I didn't contest.
About protecting yourself. My H said right after leaving "you can have the house." Maybe he felt bad or was so anxious to leave everything behind and wasn't thinking about $$ b/c he didn't think it would be an issue. But he was $pending like crazy (from his own accounts) and a couple months later he asked if I wanted to stay in the house or if we should sell it. I wanted to try to stay here if I could afford it. He suggested I just buy him out but frankly it scared the cr@p out of me to pay him a big chunk of $$ for the house w/o an agreement in place saying how the rest of our finances were split, if I might wind up liable for his or his biz venture's debts, alimony, etc. I don't know what state you're in but in mine you can sign a separation agreement that says how things are split while you're separated. I struggled greatly w/ whether to do this b/c the S agreement can be converted to D a year later and I was afraid of the message I might be sending and afraid of making D too easy. But in the end, I said I'd rather do that than one piece at a time (IOW just the house for now) so we went to mediation and signed a S agreement. The D follows its terms.
So that's how I protected myself. My sitch was different from yours b/c:
- I was making enough of a salary to keep the house and squeak by, - I had my own benefits thru work (note, though, that a S agreement or D can provide that the S w/ benefits or better employment keep up benefits for the other S), - H asking me to buy him out prompted the whole idea (I think otherwsie I would have had a much harder time bringing the S agreement up on my own),
so there are other things you will have to consider. After all this time I still don't know if that was the right decision for our R but it has given me peace of mind -- at 40+ I just could not see starting over from $0 (and yes my place is held together by duct tape but it's MY duct tape!).
You've mentioned proof of the A. As far as any S or D or what a judge or anyone else will say you're entitled to, as someone on one of your other threads pointed out, adultery means nothing in most states these days when it comes to division of assets, so you're probably best off leaving that one lie. As far as confronting him about it, I would ask myself "what's my goal?" Is there anything you'd do differently if he admitted to it? If you do confront him you probably will just p_ss him off and push him even further away. I could see if he was still coming over and trying to ML w/ you, then it might be an issue, but if he's platonic, I'm not sure what the point is. Generally these As are revealed in time w/o any help from the LBS anyway.
I think you're doing the right things as far as GAL and rolling w/ the punches. I am not dating and I'm careful to act as a M woman b/c I still feel like one, I know better than to try to forge a R w/ someone else when H is still in my heart, even if I have pretty much given up hope that he will ever be in my life again (plus I'm Catholic and still M in the eyes of the Church). I am not waiting for him and the grass is not growing under my feet. I'm surprised at this but enjoy my solo life and just look at it as the new chapter for me, the time for me to grow in a different way, taking the lessons I've learned along the way. I guess I'm just a generally positive person and not prone to depression so maybe it's easier for me b/c of that.
Good luck w/ your decision. You might want to talk to a L if you can just to get an idea of what your rights are (that helped me some).
