This is what I sent to my wife, appr. two weeks after getting proof of her affair and confronting her about it:
(Wife),
Today I have opened a separate checking account for my direct deposit, and will use the account to continue to pay our joint bills. As mentioned earlier, you are now responsible for your own credit card payment, as well as the other items mentioned below.
I will transfer $175 each week from this new account into our existing joint checking account, estimating $135 for groceries and $40 for your gas to and from your job and the boys' activities. If there are other necessary items that the boys need (haircuts, clothes, medicine, etc.), please let me know and I will transfer the funds as needed. I will work directly with the girls on their needs, and have already told them that you and I will help them with $60/week for groceries. To help pay for that, I cut them back to a cheaper cellphone plan, and told them that they need to monitor their usage carefully as they will be responsible for any overages. I think we should continue to "link" our financial support to their "full-time student" status, but we can discuss.
I will continue to make sure our family's needs (not "wants") are met. I will NOT pay for:
- your credit card payment (I will transfer, each month, an amount equal to 1/3 of your monthly payment), currently about $520/month, to help offset the expense, since we jointly rang up those expenses.
- your cellphone
- your hair coloring (cuts are fine), nails, clothes, make-up
- additional plastic surgery and procedures (I know you used your own paycheck for this, but that was supposed to have gone toward your tummy tuck balance, as we had discussed, so one way or another, I've been paying for beta peels and Botox, which I will no longer do. We have other more pressing needs).
- take-out (this may be tough, due to baseball, but I will help out as needed)
And we still need to do something about the BMW, which we cannot afford.
As mentioned last week, you need to try and get full-time employment as soon as possible, so we can begin to attack our credit card balances and get both of ourselves in a better financial position as we move forward in this. We can work together to make sure that the boys aren't home alone for extended periods of time, and I'm sure your parents would help in that regard as well.
The above arrangement is obviously temporary, until we can reach a more formal legal agreement on our finances, which I of course will abide by. Please let me know if you feel like I missed anything.
