OW has way too much baggage

[AloneAt35]

Krit,

I am new here too, and our situations are very similar. (I have a thread going a few pages back on my efforts to implement the 180/Last Resort Technique.)

My partner (if what he tells me is true) is currently involved with a less-than-ideal OW. Supposedly they met on the internet, she lives with her ex-boyfriend and a child who calls her "Mama" but whom she claims is not her biological child. First she said it was just a child she was babysitting and now she claims its an ex-boyfriend's child that she is trying to adopt. She even gave him two different names after they "met" online - I asked why she changed her name and he gave a nutty explanation. She told him that she was a grad student but when I googled the college I found out they don't offer graduate degrees, he said that maybe he remembered incorrectly. Though she lives a state away, he declared his love for her within three weeks of meeting. After he dropped the "I don't love you anymore" bomb on me, he vowed we would move slowly and amicably through our separation, but within days the OW demanded that he have no contact with me, that he stop contributing to our mutual bills, etc., etc. She tells him that I am a "pathetic doormat" and he shared this with me before I initiated boundaries via the Last Resort Technique. Also, I had to suffer the indignity of watching him sob over her (while my heart is breaking for our own 20-year relationship ending) because she 'dumped' him twice in the first month of our separation for having contact with me. Even his therapist said the OW was "worrisome" - so he stopped going to his therapist!

This man was always solid as a rock, so like you, I am worried about him. I love him very, very much and I miss him more than life itself. Also, it is interesting to note that he makes tons of money so there is no reason that he shouldn't be contributing to our mutual bills and he's even in the process of buying a very expensive McMansion/bachelor pad to live in, but suddenly he's incredibly frantic about money - as though he has recently lost a lot of it or has a lot of new expenses that I'm not aware of. (His income is 10x mine, so I have a hard time understanding his new scrupulosity toward money.)

Of course, as I learned from DB, believe NOTHING that your WS tells you, and believe only 50% of what you see with your own eyes. It could very well be that none of the things he's shared with me about the OW are true and that he is just trying to mislead me. Perhaps she is actually a successful co-worker or friend of ours and he is only trying to put me off of the trail of finding out who she really is by weaving this ludicrous story. In fact, sometimes the story seems so unbelievable that I must seem like a fool for even entertaining it. Surely he could do better, so he must just be lying, lying, lying his pants off. No way a sensible, grown man at the top of his profession runs off with some fruitloopy lady he met on the internet, right?

Either way, how does this situation pertain to you? Well, my instincts (in my own situation) are not to interfere. As my Mom says, the train is off the tracks, the sooner it crashes, the better. Actually, the only comfort I have in this situation is what a basket case the OW seems to be. I'll actually be much more hurt if I find out that she is not the nutty basket case I've been told about.

Keep working on the friendship you have with your H, but bite your tongue if you feel the need to editorialize about his OW. It will only put him in a position of defending her. I envy that you still have a friendship with your H. My partner is AWOL - no contact with me whatsoever (and to think, less than two months ago I believed I would be with him for the rest of our lives). I miss his friendship most of all. My only hope is that if his current relationship doesn't work out, we can start by rebuilding a friendship.