Your kids come first, and you should support them financially to the best of your ability with or without a court order telling you to do so. And I know you would.
Taking it up the azz legally is NOT "taking one for the team!" There's nothing that says you should financially enable your wife's affair. Why are you agreeing to an in-house separation? You've done nothing wrong, and you're not the one wanting out of the marriage, infidelity or not. If she wants "space," fine, let her go out and get her own place, and pay for it. The kids can split time between the two of your homes, in some agreed-upon arrangement.
Rules are controlling. A "rule" would be "You need to be home by 12 midnight." A "boundary" would be "I cannot live in a marriage where my wife stays out late at night and is having an affair." or "I cannot remain in a marriage where my children don't have access to their mother at 1 or 2 in the morning should they wake up sick or afraid and want you."
Does that make sense?
As for the finances, you need to separate those IMMEDIATELY (you should have already done so). Get her off of any joint accounts, and protect yourself. Why do you feel so powerless and like you have to pay for her waywardness? Am I missing something???
Any woman who is staying out that light and shows no regard for the welfare of her children would NOT get shared custody with ME, not without one helluva fight.
You may want to ask Coach and Greek (husband and wife) about some tips for playing legal hardball. They offer exceptional perspective on it from both the play-er and the play-ee. It's very effective.
In home separation sounds awful. How is that even a separation? If it were me I'd need to get in a separate space and be able to institute 180, and go dark.
The thing to remember is that the woman you married and love doesn't exist right now. She's in the crazy affair state, and can't be trusted. She may or may not emerge at some future time, but I can tell you from bitter experience, who she is right now is not to be trusted.
As for the kids, I was able to negotiate 50% custody. The times you have them are great but very tiring, the times you don't are very lonely, but it's motivation to GAL.
Hang in there.
I don't care, then I do, then I don't, then I do... la de da
SQ. Sorry for the long post. To answer your question...We came from Mar Apr of ILYBNILWY to do MC for 7 weeks June- July. Everything back together and going reasonably well, but she was not working on R. Only me. A good number of the MC sessions ended with result of a good deal of issues she had with me were made up in her head. Taking something so simple and working it into a much bigger problem than it should have ever been. We hit a bump on the road about the EA during MC and she shut it down and said our R would be mediocre at best. Said separation and then D. Moved to her own room.
I do know my role I played in this breakup and have made every effort to change as best I can to be a better me for me and the kids. In September my W commented on how amazing the changes were with me and the kids and I inspired her to be a better mom. She said she was jealous of the kids picking me over her and saying what a wonderful and great time they were having with me every night. Then the wheels came off with an accusation of abusing my D
Once W started school things became crazy. She was acting like a freshman out of HS with new found freedom. The stunt of introducing carpool guy while I was 7000 miles away was sickening.
I started seeing the same behaviors in W as with the EA when she started talking about the school mate. She was mean when she didn’t get to see him. Then sad when she would get back. All kinds of wild ass excuses as to why she was late coming home or forgot to do X and Y for the kids. Basically dropping the ball on just about everything that was for someone else. Always tired. Stopped doing things around the house etc.
For me my GALing has hit a wall. I have to say I am missing that companionship of telling someone how my day went…to confide in etc. That is my wall in GALing. Other than that I am having an amazing time with my kids every day. We are doing things no matter what W is doing on the 2 days a week she is home. We just get the guilt trip and the 1000 questions when we get back or every morning to see what we did the night before. I am trying to do things with the kids that get us all out of the house 2 nights during the school week and once or twice on the weekend .
I am more healthily than I have ever been. Lost 60 lbs. Work out and run daily. Biking, playing baseball and all other sorts of sports with kids. I just do not have much time for me. One of my closest friends is also going through D at the same time. His W and mine are BFF. So a lot of the other friends in the neighborhood are starting to shy away as our situations turn ugly. So there is another element of insanity to my sitch. I guess I have to just concentrate more on trying. I am having a hard time balancing everything right now as it is all so new. I think once I get the timing down I can do all the chores around the house and still work in the kids play time and then mine. I would love to hear how everyone has worked out the time element in their sitch.
My friend said I have become a stay at home mom with a full time job and a new child (W). I know there are a ton of people out there that have to do this and I now have a new appreciation for what they go through daily. I know I will get there soon. I just need some time to muscle my way through this mess and all the while be strong for my kids.
She has wanted to proceed to in house separation as fast as possible. I now know why. It is so then she can do anything she wants. Infidelity can no longer be used as grounds for divorce once in house sep is agreed. In another words she can screw around and have no consequences to her actions. So then since she does not work I get screwed all the way around. I also get to pay for her lawyer, her gas, spending money, clothes, birth control, Dr visits etc. That makes her another child . But I cannot manage this child and her actions but yet I am responsible for her actions. The credit cards, the school bills etc. I am worried about her actions effecting the family..drinking with her meds, drinking and driving etc.
Sorry I had to vent,
So we are now going for separation proceedings.
That was a great vent. And honestly in my opinion what she is requesting is unacceptable. IN HOUSE SEPERATION? WTF. why would you want this (it sounds to me you already have an in-house seperation. her living in another room going about her business with no care how it affects you or your children) any longer? if she had to face the consequences of her actions and descions with a real and formal seperation how would she turn?
what if you had your lawyer stop the seperation procedings and requested a divorce would that wake her up?
I am not sure on those things. We did have a long R talk last night. About car pool guy, studying etc. Said she didn't realize she was ignoring us. She saw emails in my facebook that hurt her tremendously saying she was cheating. Says no way... She even had her weddding band back on after almost 2 weeks. We talked about money sitch and then back to R sitch. She had answer to everything. But of course she lied about several things that I no for a fact. It was a 2 hour conversation to nowhere.
It always came back to what I had typed hurting her. She did some marter stuff. Funny thing was she looked up on google. How to find out if your house is bugged. She also searched for a few other odd things on the web.
All in all she said I hurt her too much to ever get back together. Still jealous of the kids relationship with me and I still have 0 belief in 80% of what she said. Mostly due to facts I know. No gut just facts. Sort of odd how she lied to my faces on 2 particular questions I asked.
W tears came about how I think she is stepping out of the marriage(cheating) and that I no longer love her so it will now be easier to get D.
Seeking thanks for the insight. The in house is b/c in our area housing is so expensive. Also if kids are involved you have to wait a year before D. Separation is not regognized in our area. In house is a D but not final. Everything is done just like a D. Divide up kid visitation, money, support etc. But you live under 1 roof. Have to be out of house when schedule kids time comes. Three witnesses to us living seperate with no sex or physical contact. And the list of insanity goes on. Scheduled time with your kids inside your own house!!!! No family meals. Paying an allowence to her while she is living under the same roof.
We can't afford mortgage and apartment. I know I can't survive an in house for yr. I have lived it for 3 months now and it sucks. And none of this time counts officially towards the seperation. She won't leave nor will I.
What's confusing? She's lying, cheating (at least an EA) and the two go hand-in-hand, as does most of the rest of her behavior. ("crocodile tears"/martyrdom are VERY common infidelity "script"))
Changes, I got some good advice on one of my posts: There's no rush for Divorce. Whether legal separation is recognized in your area doesn't seem to me to be the issue. It's rather the opportunity to get some space from each other.
Lying is par for the course with affairs and I don't know how many "talks" I've had with ex that were circular and left me MORE confused after than when we started. Trust your gut, or get ahold of the black berry if you want get concrete proof. But I'd caution that getting proof for some advantage in Divorce is less important than getting proof to ease your own mind that you're not crazy. You can be loving towards her in a way that protects yourself.
There's not really an opportunity for you both to have a real conversation while you are both emotional. It'll just make things worse. Until you get some emotional distance, and she gets past all the crazy feelings she's having right now, it's mostly pointless to try. If she is in an affair, the emotions she's feeling are like a drug and she's going to behave like an addict. If she isn't in an affair, she's still all messed up on adrenaline and fear, and obviously acting out due to something going on inside her. It's not really a reflection of you somuch as a reacting to the state of her life.
Try not to take how she acts personally and strive for loving detachment.
I don't care, then I do, then I don't, then I do... la de da
It's very effective.