seeking support 2 1/2 years in

[Painter]

Thank you Painter and JellyB for pointing you this way.

Deep down i too believe the boys will be fine - but on the dark days i question that with knowing that their dad seemed fine too...He has lied cheated and stolen from them as well from me and walked away from us all.

Good, in fact great point about the positive male role models. S14 is well surrounded, but i am floundering a bit for S12. This is a good tangible thing i can work on - i like goals

I really really struggle with the thought that OW could be a positive presence in their lives. Nice people dont have affairs with other peoples husbands in my experience. i will see if i can word my thoughts well enough to express your point about his forcing them on her when they would rather have time alone with him. That would at least help me feel i had tried my best in that regard.

How have some of the rest of you managed to get your heads around this bit?

I try not to think about the boys Grandparents - while my thoughts re XH are conflicted - love but not like , i am 100% sure how i feel about XIL's and choose just not to go there for my own mental health. It does leave me to think this is a no hope for reconciliation scenario - this is just who he is and who he has been brought up to be. To be fair reconciliation is not even a consideration at this point - just living the best life possible is my focus.

I did discuss with a lawyer filing a police report - but it was pointed out that i would probably get in trouble myself for being a nuisance since i know exactly where everything is. Perhaps i could just tell XH that i was going to and see what happened. I have a bit of an honesty issue since this all occurred - cant cope with lies or part truths and need things to be squeeky clean honest so I am not sure if i could manage that. Will leave it with the lawyer.

Poor poor lawyer who so dearly wants to file for divorce on my behalf

The boys' posessions are with their father, so technically not stolen. You can ask in the settlement agreement that the children have free access to their belongings, meaning that they can take them between houses as they wish.

Missing marital property can also be addressed in court. If H swears he doesn't have it (which I doubt he will in court), you should be able to file a police report of it as stolen.

Games with stuff is v. common. H's ex told the kids they couldn't take clothes from her place to our place because I'd cut them up with scissors.

OW could have been fooled. She may be a nice person. I believe I may have been fooled when I met H. H still sticks to his story about his ex having an A and being too crazy to live with (which is true - she suffers from mental illness and was horribly abusive to her children), that they were S when we met, but after noticing many similarities between how we started and how his A with OW developed, and how good he is at lying, I now can't help wondering if he did the same back then. That's why I made sure to tell OW what the facts were. She still pursued him, and most revealing to me, never told H that I made contact.