Geez, guessed I missed that part of the intro. I am 42 and W is 39. We’ve been together 10 years and married 8. Wife had a previous marriage that lasted 10 years. This is my first/only.
Yeah, you all have picked up on the controlling/manipulative part quite fast. In hindsight that existed before BD but has increased since. I’m certain my lack of boundaries contributed to that situation and the current situation. This is an area for my 180, which I have been thinking a lot about the last few days based on the feedback.
So regarding clarifying the OM situation, she was staying overnight at his place in sept for one night/weekend for about 4-6weeks. She claimed it was just friendly; I didn’t believe her obviously. From subsequent snooping I found proof it was sexual in a bill clinton type of way. Anyway, after several weeks (4?) I stated a boundary that if she was gonna sleep at another man’s house that she couldn’t stay in MBR. She stopped staying overnight shortly thereafter. Has asked about staying overnight again about a month ago and I reiterated my stance and asked which bedroom she wanted her stuff moved to while she was gone. She did not go. I get this boundary was late and too weak. Heck, I even knew that at the time.
OM lives 90 minutes away, is currently on parole for second felony, does not own a car nor have a valid driver license (due to parole). He cannot come visit W right now. So what goes on now and for the past few months is that W waits until D7 and I leave the house for school/work and then goes to visit OM. The round trip travel time is roughly 3 hours which leaves them ~3 hours together. I am pretty sure they are intimate during that time but don’t have proof. As I said earlier I quit snooping months ago.
Regarding Halloween, W spent it with SD12 while I was with D7. W was not with OM. For Tgiving W did not want to make/discuss plans after many, many convos so the weekend before Tgiving I bought plane tickets for D7 and I to visit my FOO out of state (I have no local family). Wanted D7 to have some semblance of a good holiday. I assume W visit(s) OM when I am out of town with D7 since stepkids are old enough to take care of themselves. Plus they have stepfather. So in general I am under the belief W is actively in sexual A but I also have very little recent proof without snooping. I am also highly confident W often texts with OM in my presence while claiming it is a girlfriend or mom, etc.. I am confident because OM doesn’t have an alert but all other contacts/friends do (this fact hasn’t occurred to W; to be honest she’s not very good at covering her tracks). She hides the phone and sits far away etc.—good enough for airtight proof.
Dec 26 we went to visit her FOO for the first time as a family all year and she got drunk there. She mostly dislikes her FOO for a multitude of reasons. Due to drunkeness she wasn’t hiding her phone as well as usual and I saw she was texting OM. Given we were in her parents house and she was drunk I did not confront her. I just left the room. D7 and I flew out the next morning before she woke up. FWIW, I also assume she visited OM while we were out of town, again no proof.
Point of that story is two fold. One, I want to separate the cellphones. Annoyingly she is set up as the account owner and VZ needs her permission for me to split off. I just want control of my number and don’t want to be associated with her activities. Let her pay that bill too. Whatever, I just don’t want to be linked to it in any form. I had asked her to add me as a manager to that account months ago and put in a formal request with VZ but she didn’t approve me although she lies (I assume) and swears she did. I assume she knows I can access the phone logs as a manager which is why she didn’t approve me. I have never discussed splitting off the accounts to date. I look at it as a new boundary given the Dec 26 texting but had not stated it before. Any issue just stating it as a consequence of Dec 26 without prior statement as a boundary? My plan would be for the two of us to go to the VZ store and make the transaction occur—no way she can make false claims when they can check. Not trying to get access to her account since I don’t care to snoop … so I don’t think it should be an issue.
Second reason I bring up Dec 26 is we are/were supposed to go to NYE party together—an outcome/agreement from when things were falsely going better a few weeks ago. We would appear as a happy/functioning couple (a false representation) and I suspect she is going to text OM in my presence while there…which would be disrespectful & hurtful to me. Should I still go? I think the answer should be “no” given what I’ve read of other sitches over the past couple days (ex. Maturin) but I had previously agreed and don’t currently have an alternative. D7 is going to sleepover so I can’t pull on that. I think stepkids will potentially be at our house so I’m not sure I can even just stay home and pretend to be elsewhere. I’m trying to reach out to other friends to extract an invite but I literally might just have to go burn a few hours by myself if I don’t go with W. Thoughts?
In general I’m starting to feel emotionally strong enough /independent to stand up for myself and put in strong boundaries. Yikes, that sentence [censored] to write. Gonna sign up for the class I mentioned. Also plan to state the texting OM in my presence is a boundary (I’ll leave the room). The real defense for that action is to be around her less, living my life/GAL. Been reading Maturin, MrP, Surfer & woke_up situations for guidance the last 3 days. Trying to think through boundary escalation and MBR situation and how to weave that in.
