You know guys, I really appreciate all of the replies, some of which have been tough and that's cool. I had a bad day today. I was at work and was reading a forum from a father's support group - one of the posts said something along the lines of "trust nothing" "your wife is planning to take you for a ride", "protect yourself" "investigate everything" "Keep records and by all means snoop around when she's not home". Well unfortunately this got me to thinking...I'm a pretty smart man, a sucker for staying with the woman I love for sure...but a smart man none the less. Since the W is away for one more day and I've had that "feeling in my gut" that she's up too something I went ahead and did some looking around. It didn't take 10 minutes for me to find a box in her closet with Thanksgiving "love" presents to her girlfriend...love notes, gift receipts, empty jewelry boxes, concert receipts, and my favorite of all, a dozen CD's filled with images of them both - kissing, hugging, on the beach, in bed, etc. My other favorite find was a note to self - "should I file for divorce in NC - need 12 months separation...FL 6 months..I'll have to wait until December! Need liabilities and finance report, $3000 retainer!" A close third was another note about "what's mine is mine and what's his is MINE!" Yeah, so that pretty much seals the deal for me - the W is stringing me along, just as I thought, until she gets her FL residency and then she'll file in a no fault state and walk away with everything. I tried to be the nice guy...I believed it was my fault that she fell in love with her girlfriend. I believed when I caught them (7600 text messages in on month) and called them out it would stop. I believed that the trips I paid for where she went back to visit was just "for friends" and to "have the kids see their friends"..NOT. I believed she wanted to start over, be friends and get a new start. And then I looked at the cell phone records and stuff in the closet and realized I'm just a fool. Yes, I've tried to change myself, but in all actuality there probably wasn't much wrong with me. I could be a better father by being around more - which I'm doing and I can zero in on my W's love language because I probably just hit 5 out of 5.
The final straw was when I read a poem my W wrote to her girl...it mentioned "and when you asked if we could marry" "Of course I said" bla bla bla love me, love you, forever this, eternal that. So there's one more part that I'm sure you'll enjoy - NC has an "alienation of affection" law, of course I mentioned this way back when and it really scared my W and her girl...who would want to get sued for interfering with a marriage? Well lucky me the statute is 3 yrs and I only found out in March '13.
There's only two options here: Confront my W with my newly found and hard copied information and get a "post nump" OR Go to NC and file for a divorce and get custody of the kids I love that she so elegantly believes will be part of her new life.
I so give up, I tried and tried and when it comes down to it, I was the better man but common sense has to used here...not hope.
me - 43 her - 34 married - 14 yrs Son 7 Daughter 8 The bomb - June 2013