Mea Maxima culpa!

[Neos_wife]

Oh -- that's a REALLY hard one! Right now I am SO filled with mistrust and fear. I've been a kept wife for the past nine years (at his request): having sold my house, closed my business and moved across the country to be with him. I have trusted him completely for all this time; he has kept me informed in passing about our finances (and I supported everything he had done -- even putting us $40,000 in the hole a few years ago to keep his (sole) employee on at the company for as long as he possibly could (the economic downturn REALLY smashed the company badly)..

(The employee had worked with H and my H's father (who invented the device we build) for the past twenty years. He was like a brother to my H.. (My husband still occasionally cries a bit when he is reminded of having to let him go...) We're still paying off that $40K! )

When H lost his mind (or, as he says, when "the lizard" called him BACK to his senses, and thus he wants to divorce me) , I began scrambling to educate myself on how our finances stand). Thankfully, he's entirely open about them. Except he is in total control -- and that includes the several credit cards in *my* name he has filled up with low-interest cash advances. He feels, and I agree, that if the companies are willing to 'lend' us credit card money at 0%, we'd be crazy NOT to use that! So we roll over the debt to each new 0% card as we pay the balances down.

But then I (snooped and) found the message he wrote HER saying he'd start sending her $500 a month support -- because she's broke (living off the kindness of friends, apparently) and apparently also has no interest in getting any clients (she's a licensed professional); and that just drove me crazy! We are trying to pay down this huge indebtedness AND save up for me to move on with -- and then he wants to send HER money! So far, as near as I can tell, he hasn't sent her any support money -- just her plane ticket ($800) to come her for a month in May -- which she then ended up cancelling; so that money is down the rabbit hole (nonrefundable) How did I discover all this? Partly (a lot) by "snooping" in the personal and professional bank records (and he has always made me free to look at our finances; he prints the monthly account tracking for me too); and by reading the business balance sheets and accounts payable (and I AM, on paper at least, the legal ,official, and state-recognized treasurer of the company) I am learning what's where... And partly by snooping on (his side of) their phone calls... I have NOT been recording his side for quite a while (not since he caught me!). Hence I have his words about plotting to conivnce me they had broken up ON TAPE!!

The state I live in does consider "fault" in assigning alimony and dividing property. IF he loses his mind (further) -- or she prevails on him in her plotting to damage me and get rid of me whether or not he can sent me off healthy -- I have evidence I can use in a court to try to protect myself. Am I paranoid? How can I NOT be!? I heard them plotting against me. (However, he says he was just playing along with her -- which I do give some credence to, as he has done that with me to;o and he has to regualrly play along with her until she recovers from her various hysterics and he can try to talk sense to her again -- which I have also heard him do!). He says he doesn't remember the "plotting" at all, which I do NOT believe - since he triumphantly wrote her that "The Plan [against me] worked perfectly!"

He is (I am thankful) firmly committed to making sure I get a financially sound "send off." He says to me -- and to her -- that he "has never and will never leave an ex-wife bleeding in the middle of the road." He 'sent off' his previous ex very very well (still paying her $1,600 a month, till she dies) -- but he does not have the resources to do so for me, and thus we agreed on the two years before he divorces me, trying to gain enough income (and me to re-establish my career; I'm 50.) to be able to protect me AND marry the lizard. (The lizard, of course, is agitating for him to dump me now regardless -- which I am very relieved to say he will not ... well, {wince} that's what he says -- to me -- so far...)



If I had not snooped, I would think the truth really WAS that she was going to marry her ex-boyfriend, and my H ("deeply depressed and desperate") really WAS going to England to try to win her back -- instead of KNOWING it was a plot from start to finish -- that he INTENDED to mislead me into thinking she was leaving him, and he "had" to try to win her back, and so get MY support for HIS damaging me/us by spending several thousand dollars on his "trip to win her back."

How do I STOP snooping -- knowing that he's lying and cheating?

Neo's Wife