sorry HIL. that is tough. it is remarkable the insight which children have. she is a little angel. i say that about my 4 y/o too. hold on there amigo. u r strong and a good dad. live in the moment. i have said that many times as well. this past w/e when u were together with ur children, enjoying in their company and basking in their joy that is what u were doing. when u were in church as a family and ur W showed u affection, u were still a family. in that moment, u were one unit together gathered under God.
insofar as exposure? am for it. i do not advocate going all out as Willard Harley would suggest but most def think that A's flourish in secret and in the dark. ur job is to take the mystery and romance away. how detailed an exposure and to how many people u expose to is a judgement call. i KNOW my W still harbors resent (it was only one month ago) about how i did it. have tried telling her my reasoning that needed to take away the romance and mystery of it. offered her the following refs that i will post here.
Truegritter stands on the other side of the camp and i would respectfully disagree with him on exposure. Then again, he has a diff type of experience and a diff fund of knowledge, and thus far his posts have been great with strong advice. there is more than one way of doing things, you know?
if it is true that ur OM is engaged then his fiance will be ur biggest ally. really. it sounds as if u need to gather data tho. the who of the OM, where does he live, does he go over to ur house and is exposed to ur kids, who is he friends with, is he engaged/soon to be married, how old is he, where does he work (funny enough was driving by store today which is same as where OM works in FL and we live in CT, W asks me if there is anything we need from there bc we are passing by and i answer i have no intention of ever shopping there again. period. she looked surprised and amused? go ahead and smile but that's it. i cannot even look at the logo of the place without being bothered).
would agree that if u could stomach returning, sep works both ways. on one hand, ur W still feels that attachment to u which is why she kissed u on the cheek in church. she is confused tho. she thinks that the answer lies in the arms of another. remember, do NOT believe anything she says. zero. going dark would be hard bc u have 3 kids. u can detach tho and GAL. make yourself into that guy who landed ur W and w/ whom she committed to and exchanged vows under God.
and last thought? D is NOT that simple. i know ur W would seem to think so maybe. but regardless u will be in her life and she in yours for as long as ur children live. they are young. u do have great affection for ur W. ur family would benefit from working on things. it would. i would say u should look at Retrouvaille but she CANNOT be involved in a third party relationship in order to attend. Retrouvaille could be sold as something of last resort.
check out their website: saveourmarriage.org or just google the word. check out lotus's post on Retrouvaille too. pretty awesome stuff but u have some work to do before u get there. all the best. will keep on checking things out.
