I have had enough of these persistent doubts, and I have had enough of her "acts".
So, I did the anti-DB, not-so-fatherly thing and saddled my two sleepy little boys up in my car (warmed it up inside nice and toasty first -- it's turned cold out there this early AM) and drove the six miles to the house.
Nobody was home: W was not there, and doesn't look like she was ever there all evening.
I have my answer now -- I don't need to drag my sons any further, like to the other side of the metro area to see if W's mini-van is parked outside OM's apartment. Nope, the fact that she was making like she had to get her paperwork and get home so she could get up oh-so-very-early this AM to see a patient -- and would be busy all day long too -- was just a pretense for taking our S's off her hands one more night, to do something without our knowing.
I have said nothing in front of our S's, I was almost totally silent driving back, but I know S7 will ask what this was all about later, when he's actually awake. He's going to want to know why his mother was not at the house when we paid our visit. I don't know what I can say to him. It breaks my heart for him, and for his little brother.
This also confirms the reasons behind the crazy crap she's dumped on me of late. I wondered if she was "saving herself" for the OM, and that was what was making her so irritable. But then, knowing her MO, I doubted she could hold herself back for very long -- she doesn't have the will power. At the least, I am pretty sure she has no longer held herself back tonight.
Oddly, I am both tired and charged up at the same time. I am calmer, oddly, now knowing for certain what I have suspected.
W has been so good at downplaying what is going on in her personal life of late (other than saying she now works too much to do anything for herself -- which I know to be B.S.) Part of me had hoped she was over her R with OM since she has the cell phone back she gave him. But I also know her self-esteem would be at stake in not having some man's attentions for very long -- so she could be on to OM #2 for all I know -- it doesn't matter. The fact is she's lying and trying to cover up for being out into the wee hours of the morning yet again.
I have a mind to tell her that if our S's are cramping her style, I'll be glad to take them off her hands permanently. But I do know how my two little boys love their mother so much, and they will love her no matter what. I could never deprive them of their mother, no matter how much she hurts me. They're too young to really see the harm she's doing to them or to all of us, and that is just as well -- I want to protect them from this hurt as much as I humanly can.
Why can't she see any of this?
I am so done. It's going to be all so very much easier to detach now. She denies and lies all too pathologically to be trusted. It's so pathetic and ugly, so sad and sick.
I have to bury her in my mind now -- think of my W as having died and I am now a widower. I just have to deal with this dark phantom now that has taken on her appearance now, but it is just a harmless ghost. I can continue to pray for the soul of my dearly departed spouse, and ask God to some day help her spirit out of this purgatory she has chosen.
