wife having affair - please help

[facingdivorce]

Hi
I posted on newcomers, but my responses dont seem to get posted up , so not sure what the problem is.

Anyway I have definately confirmed my wife is having an affair - in fact as I have moved out he has been coming over and today when I looked at my 6 year olds toy camera there is a picture of him in my lounge room. in fact they went on a trip together with my kids....

He works with my wife and he is married with 2 kids.

The humiliation and hurt is just overwhelming and my wife continues to deny the affair.I feel destroyed over this, to think another man is playing with my kids is just devastating and my wife is so callous as to it all.

I know I am supposed to be nice to her and act as if, I know Im supposed to be upbeat, but I just am unable to breathe let alone speak

How am I to handle this, i want to tell his wife and return the pain, but is that advisable. Any help from those of you who have gone through this would be great as I am on my own and feel like Im this expendable commodity.

[kml]

Telling his wife to "return the pain" is not advisable. And to tell the truth, telling his wife may hurt your chances of reconciliation with YOUR wife, because she will resent you doing so. That being said, I take a somewhat altruistic approach to this question (which is not the usual DB response) - I feel the wife has a right to know. I would have wanted to know! She has the right to make decisions about her own life based on the facts of what her husband is doing. People who say "she probably already knows" - she probably doesn't! I didn't!

If there is a way you can tell the wife anonymously without it being traced back to you, that would be best.

And yes, it is sucky that your wife is involving your kids in her love life but there is probably little you can do about that. Focus instead on being the best person and dad that you can possibly be.

[Starsky309]

I'm with KML. The man's wife shouldn't be the only one of the four adults affected to NOT know the truth about what's going on, so she can deal with it as she sees best for her and her own children.

Starsky

[facingdivorce]

Kml thanks for the reply. Its a complex sitch as my wife and her om work together and would be fired for this, due to the fact that they travel togrther and breach of standards of business conduct. Hence why she wont admit affair, the career consequences are huge for both of them.

They think i am going to inform their hr mgmt, so i have panic texts from her, trying to be nice.

The thing is we have no f2f contact, no phone conversations, just text. The seperation has been 8 weeks. So there is little opportunity to engage her and she makes no effort with me. If i tried to engage then it will look like i am pursuing and she hates that. She obviously has no respect for me.

I want him to know that there are consequences for what he has done and i want to rattle their relationship, to burst their romantic bubble.But i dont want to make threats, i just want the action...

I am concerned this will push my wife away into his arms though, make them unite so to speak. Any thoughts really help me

[facingdivorce]

I dont think i can do the contact with omw anonymously. More for logistical issues.

I can phone him at his office, i have only just found out his name, but thats all i have.

[facingdivorce]

My wife travels about 50 percent of the time overseas, so today she emails me with May travel schedule, with the command that i will look after the children exactly on those dates, no consultation , just here it is. .... So when i drop the kids off back at my main home where they live, i say, i cant do those dates, they dont work for me. .... Well the wife has been going to the gym alot ( she doesnt want to get too fatigued with all the new sex she is having ) and shows me by jumping all around the front lawn having a major tantrum. Wow, talk about a change. Any way as i drive off i wave Like Prince William.

Now if she had said please i would do it, but to command me and then go nuts when she doesnt get her way....i know im pushing it, but she seriously overstepped the boundaries.

So my question is, even if you know your wife is going to go away and shack up in a hotel room for two weeks with the om, do you just embrace the suck and go look after the kids. My self respect / pride says NO.i also think the more she thinks I am a door mat the more she will never come back. I was never a pussy and she liked that. By saying no , to me it also forces her to start dealing with realities of normal life, its not all hotels, conferences and restaurants ( you cant compete with that).

I know she will email me tomorrow an angry one making d threats, financial ruin, social expulsion , blah blah blah blah. I ignore those coz she's angry . Im conflicted though, I cant go dark coz the kids and at the moment i would just like some peace so i can get my bearings, i feel like Im in a bad foreign language soap opera...

But if anyone has a strategy for dealing with this please do jump right into my nightmare, the waters warm.

[facingdivorce]

So yes I got a very angry email from my wife, but no d threat.So I sent an email to my wife yesterday saying she is not to contact me for some time as I need some space. I was lovingly detached and said she will always be part of the family and cared for but because she broke the boundaries, I now needed to stop communications with her. I was calm, confident assured in tone and made no accusations at her.

Before that she called my mother yesterday to ask her to look after the kids, but as soon as she started talking to my mom, she started crying so hard she had to go, saying she misses us. This is the first contact with her since the split.

This is hard to do, but I think she might be starting to get a glimpse this week what the ongoing reality is going to be. I can only hope that it makes her consider a few things.

I see her now as a addict, who when she is denied her fix ( contact with the om ) lashes out. I dont think it makes it easier for my heart, but it helps me visualise her differently.

So now I suppose I am in LRT. Im going to spend the next couple of weeks getting all of the financials, custody etc sorted out behind the scenes ( have to be prepared for all contingencies )

I am going to rewrite my goals, boundaries and minimum standards, and then see what she does.

Any input is always appreciated, coz I wonder if I am doing the right thing on an hourly basis.

[sandi2]

I am concerned this will push my wife away into his arms though, make them unite so to speak

How can she get more into his arms than she already is?

You asked me on another thread if it was too late to tell her that OM can have her? I don't think it's too late (if you can stick to it). However, since you are S from her and she doesn't respect you.....and she's having OM come over and take part with the "family" activities, I don't think she's going to mind very much. But you have to ask yourself, is what you're doing now working?

IMHO, I do think you need to drop the rope with her. She needs to know that you do not plan to sit around "waiting" on her to end the A with OM. You are prepared to move forward with having a life that does not include her.

Do not tell her any of your plans. Do not rescue her if the heat gets bad at the office. Do not threaten OM. He is not the real problem, anyway. Expect OM and your W to get more open with the A. But, when you take yourself out of the picture, it will put more pressure on OM. He'll either have to make up a reason not to take things to the next level, or he will have to get a D from his W.

Here's the thing, you have already lost her. You're trying to hold on to a M that is dead. (I don't mean that you can't have a new M, even with her.) But, as thick as the fog A is with her, I don't think she is just going to wake up one morning and want you back. This A could carry on for a long time. IMO, a woman like this needs tough love, but that's me, not Michele.

Do you work at the same office as your W? Have you separated finances, etc.?

[facingdivorce]

Sandi2

Thanks very much for your comments.

I agree this wont resolve very easily, and I think they will become more open about this as they go. The being good to her approach didnt work at all, she just took it and used it up.

The tough love I started this week, stopping contact and no longer helping her, does seem to impact her more. It certainly inconveniences her and puts her into a big problem with work travel,as she is supposed to travel next week to lead a new business pitch, and cant as i am not babysitiing . She has no family in the city we live in, just my side. Also she doesnt have any friends here as she travels so much. So she is now quite isolated. The om flies in to see her.

Im not sure what dropping the rope means as a term. I now have no marriage relationship with her and no contact. I am working on the finances and a parenting plan for shared custody arrangements. But i dont communicate to her about it.

The work exposure of her Om will definately impact him, as he is only in this exec job for about 8 months and they tend to get rid of problems like this through termination. My wife is definately worried about this and what it will mean for her job. She is very proud of her accomplishments and the type of lifestyle the job affords, so losing it would be devasting.

I havent seperated finances yet fully, mortgages etc, which is what i am working on now with the accountants, its complex and triggers a lot of costs and issues. But it is in process.

She is normally, whatever that means, a financially responsible person, though now has gone on a spending spree, clothes going out, take away meals virtually every night with the kids, buying the kids presents every week. We have always tried to show the children that you dont need to buy things like this, now all i hear is mom bought us this bought us that...Is this common behaviour?

No we dont work together thankfully.

[facingdivorce]

So its all seems now the business end of seperation / divorce. I dont know how to bring any focus on the relationship side.

Just reading my posts then and it struck me how hopeless it seems. Im Eight weeks into this now since d day. I feel now we are on this freight train to divorce, working efficienctly through the to do list , but no thought of the relationship.