SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I've just written an email to my lawyer concerning where to next, and I absolutely intend to follow through.

I've read your posts and unfortunately I came to the same conclusion many others did. It does not sound good for R.

Others have given you excellent advice. I would like to finesse a few of the things you already heard.

See the attorney and get the ball rolling. Being served sometimes does marvelous things to clear the fog your WW is in. You can stop proceedings at any time.

You can then take things very slow if you want to perhaps get her working for the purpose of eliminating some of the alimony you may have to pay her. Some states don't allow alimony after infidelity.

Slowing proceedings also allows you to keep records of how many hours per week each of you take care of the kids. If she's out in the sticks with prancy dance guy, she's not caring for the children, you are. Keep good records for the inevitable day of deciding child support.

You mentioned you have a business. If she's deep in the fog, she may be willing to settle for favorable terms just to get out of the M.

I'm sure you're an honorable guy and you want her to have her fair share, but some of the true horror stories here are from betrayed people whose wayward spouses are getting tips from their divorced APs.

Those divorced APs are like true flesh eating zombies. They feel they got screwed by their exes and so they urge their new adoring GF/BF to get every single dime and use every dirty trick they can. Like zombies only with money instead of brains.

Speaking of APs, does the new guy have a record? You'll be able to get a lot of his info right from your wife, if you are cool about it. Place, date of birth, service, job, kids, was/is he married, ever do time? Things like that.

Most of the things I mentioned are in case of the worst outcome. Hopefully you can R if that's what you want. But it never hurts to prepare for the worst, especially if you had no idea you'd ever be here. I remember those feelings. Awful. The state of unbelief, of being suspended, of wondering if you're going to live from the pain.

And you do live. You will get better. You'll get faster, leaner, smarter and you will find peace.

I do hope things work out for you.

edited to add: I just saw your update.

5 minutes later she sent me a screenshot of her messages to him where she's said it's over, she needs to save her marriage, and goodbye.

You don't really believe this do you? If she wants to save her M she's going to be living at home, sleeping in your bed. During the day she will be calling counselors. This woman is not remorseful.

She's told me "my fear is that I move up there, realize after a few months it's not what I thought it would be and want to come back, but by then it's too late, you've moved on, and you won't want me."

It's rare they actually tell the BS that they are Plan B.

[This message edited by Ariopolis at 12:18 AM, April 11th (Sunday)]

5 minutes later she sent me a screenshot of her messages to him where she's said it's over, she needs to save her marriage, and goodbye. She only met him 4 weeks ago, so this was a short affair.

Cheaters lie a lot. Right now she regrets getting caught. Did this message actually go to him? Did she call him up and tell him she had to do this just for now but to ignore it? You really don’t know.

Sorry man but this is meaningless. You are an honorable, honest guy. It will be hard for you to realize she isn’t.

Great job on exposing. It’s the best thing you could have done upfront.

Reconciliation takes:

Remorse not sorry they got caught

Transparency

Zero contact with her lover

Right now you don’t have one.

[This message edited by Marz at 12:28 AM, April 11th (Sunday)]

One thing I would do is go online and look at the phone bill.

That may give you some info on contact. Were they talking before here supposed message? After?

Of course they could be using cheater apps that don’t go through the phone bill but it’s worth a look.

Good luck

She's told me "my fear is that I move up there, realize after a few months it's not what I thought it would be and want to come back, but by then it's too late, you've moved on, and you won't want me."

Other posters are correct. Shes looking for a soft place to land if her boyfriend doesn’t work out.

Sorry

[This message edited by Marz at 12:36 AM, April 11th (Sunday)]

The 180

Upfront your best info

https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/healing_library/confrontation/simplified-180.asp

You, sir, are being extremely naive.

You would be best served believing worse case than giving her the benefit of doubt. Until proven otherwise you should believe OM was sitting next to her as she sent him those messages.

[This message edited by DeWittle at 12:48 AM, April 11th (Sunday)]

LittleAndyUnicorn -

Don't do the pick-me dance. She should come home to you RIGHT NOW, beg your forgiveness, and do everything possible to heal your trauma.

A fog is a weather phenomena - a mental fog is caused either by brain injury or medication. Anything else is just pseudo-science.

Right now, she is failing miserably. Be careful - don't waste your life on an unremorseful cheater. And don't stay in this toxic marriage thinking it will help the kids. It will have the opposite effect on them.

You are still in the initial shock phase and are scrambling to preserve your family intact - we've all been there. But unless she returns RIGHT NOW and bends over backwards to repair the havoc she has wreaked, there is no family to preserve - she has destroyed it. It's all ON HER.

Ok I think I want to take the power back and avoid the pick-me dance. how's this?

I’ll probably never understand why you couldn’t just come to me and say “I’m deeply unhappy in our marriage - so unhappy that I could be tempted to have an inappropriate relationship with someone else,” or “we need to try living in #### for 6 months or I can’t continue the marriage.” This would have been infinitely easier to deal with than what I’m left with now. But you never gave me a choice. Instead you’ve devastated me and changed all our lives forever.

I don’t know how long this affair would have continued had I not exposed you. I don’t know if you would have ever confessed by yourself. I don’t know why you wanted to look at houses to buy and then go sneaking off with him. I’ll have so many questions that you can probably never answer.

I will never accept that the city, or my parents, or my depression are any justification for what you’ve done. I will never accept that your cheating was in any way my fault. Your affair showed me that you don’t love me or respect me, or the commitment we made to each other.

I’ve had issues and doubts over the years. I’ve done my absolute best to work on myself and better understand who I am and why I am this way. All I wanted was for you to feel settled here, so that we could get on with our lives. You could have so easily figured out what’s lacking in your life with counseling or therapy. Maybe I made things too easy for you. Maybe you needed some struggle and challenge in your life, so you could feel like you earned it. I hope one day soon you will figure this out.

I know I can’t change you. I can’t fix you. I can’t make you want to reconcile. I can’t make you come home. And I can’t take responsibility for ensuring your happiness. All I can control right now is how I feel and what I do next.

I’ve decided that I want to separate. For now, our children’s welfare and stability are the priority. They should continue to live here and go to school. They need as few changes right now as possible with their parents no longer living together.

I propose that I will look after them Monday to Friday while you reside elsewhere, so you can work to support yourself, and on weekends you can stay in the house with them while I reside elsewhere. Once they become settled into this routine and better understand what is happening we can discuss how we share their time between #### and #### (if you ultimately decide to move permanently there.) I also strongly feel that they should have a say in where their preferred base residence is.

This is not a decision I’ve made lightly, by any stretch, but it’s the one I feel is best for me and our children - and probably you too. I need to begin healing and moving forward with my life, and you need proper time and separation from our situation to figure yourself out.

I promise you I will never say anything to the children that paints you in a bad light. You are and will always be their mother, and I hope you will do the same for me. I promise that I will be amicable with you in all dealings relating to the sharing of their care, their schooling, and any future events where we will all be together. I will always be respectful of you in their presence and I will always consider your family to be important to me. No one else needs to be a victim in this.

You are welcome to continue staying in #### for now and return when you are ready. In the meantime please start making arrangements for where you will stay during the week.

In the end, the problem is not really this city/country thing. The problem is your relationship.

If the problem had been her unhappiness in the city, she could have talked to you and said "I'm not happy, I need to go back to my roots". And you could have found a solution together, for example living in the city and buying a house in the country where you would go on weekends or regularly.

She chose to go into the arms of another man and gives you this excuse. It's disrespectful. If it were true, she is showing you that she doesn't trust you enough to find a solution to this city/country problem together. And she's willing to leave you for it. Maybe she doesn't love you as much as you thought she did.

I’ll probably never understand why you couldn’t just come to me and say “I’m deeply unhappy in our marriage - so unhappy that I could be tempted to have an inappropriate relationship with someone else,” or “we need to try living in #### for 6 months or I can’t continue the marriage.” This would have been infinitely easier to deal with than what I’m left with now. But you never gave me a choice. Instead you’ve devastated me and changed all our lives forever.

I don’t know how long this affair would have continued had I not exposed you. I don’t know if you would have ever confessed by yourself. I don’t know why you wanted to look at houses to buy and then go sneaking off with him. I’ll have so many questions that you can probably never answer.

I will never accept that the city, or my parents, or my depression are any justification for what you’ve done. I will never accept that your cheating was in any way my fault. Your affair showed me that you don’t love me or respect me, or the commitment we made to each other.

I’ve had issues and doubts over the years. I’ve done my absolute best to work on myself and better understand who I am and why I am this way. All I wanted was for you to feel settled here, so that we could get on with our lives. You could have so easily figured out what’s lacking in your life with counseling or therapy. Maybe I made things too easy for you. Maybe you needed some struggle and challenge in your life, so you could feel like you earned it. I hope one day soon you will figure this out.

I know I can’t change you. I can’t fix you. I can’t make you want to reconcile. I can’t make you come home. And I can’t take responsibility for ensuring your happiness. All I can control right now is how I feel and what I do next.

I’ve decided that I want to separate. For now, our children’s welfare and stability are the priority. They should continue to live here and go to school. They need as few changes right now as possible with their parents no longer living together.

I propose that I will look after them Monday to Friday while you reside elsewhere, so you can work to support yourself, and on weekends you can stay in the house with them while I reside elsewhere. Once they become settled into this routine and better understand what is happening we can discuss how we share their time between #### and #### (if you ultimately decide to move permanently there.) I also strongly feel that they should have a say in where their preferred base residence is.

This is not a decision I’ve made lightly, by any stretch, but it’s the one I feel is best for me and our children - and probably you too. I need to begin healing and moving forward with my life, and you need proper time and separation from our situation to figure yourself out.

I promise you I will never say anything to the children that paints you in a bad light. You are and will always be their mother, and I hope you will do the same for me. I promise that I will be amicable with you in all dealings relating to the sharing of their care, their schooling, and any future events where we will all be together. I will always be respectful of you in their presence and I will always consider your family to be important to me. No one else needs to be a victim in this.

You are welcome to continue staying in #### for now and return when you are ready. In the meantime please start making arrangements for where you will stay during the week

This all sounds like you are still trying to have a rational conversation with her and trying to explain to her how you feel.

Dude, she doesnt give a fuck how you feel. Honestly, Ghost her ass and start the divorce process. You will very quickly learn how important you are once she gets served. she will either come back or stay with AP

You can sum up everything you just wrote by one simple sentence.

I am going to look out for myself and the kids from now on.

[This message edited by Ichthus at 1:58 AM, April 11th (Sunday)]

You’re in shock right now. Got it. No one is prepared for this.

You are trying to rationalize with an irrational wayward wife.

Nothing matters to her right now except her other man. Her affair trumps everything.

Separation means allowing her to spend time trying out her other man. With you out of the way.

A WW sees a long letter like that and this is what their takeaway is:

"He put a lot of thought and effort into that letter. He still wants and loves me."

A WW sees a long letter like that and this is what their takeaway is:

"He put a lot of thought and effort into that letter. He still wants and loves me."

I'm so glad I didn't send it yet!

Just write nothing.

Let her do the next move.

She will come back (or not).

She's told me "my fear is that I move up there, realize after a few months it's not what I thought it would be and want to come back, but by then it's too late, you've moved on, and you won't want me."

"all I know is I want to live up here in the country."

Do those who want to live in the country have to f... with the country men first? What does her actions have to do with living in the country? Don't let her bring the matter to that; she didn't take a stroll in the country, she cheated on you.

She made it clear that you were Plan B. What if she move up there and realize it's exactly what she tought? Either way, it doesn't matter, she still doesn't care about you? And men live in the city too.

NC is a must for the process, but it doesn't mean everything. Her mind is still on the AP.

I think you read all the messages between them, including the beginning and you know when the A started. Is it sure that she met him for the first time at the wedding or can be AP someone she knew before? If he is someone she knew before, there may be more than you know. Obviously neither is good; relapse of the former love or keeping someone she met just 4 weeks ago above her family.

Maybe what we're writing is a little harsh, but her A and her attitude after it came out and your reactions are giving some negative signals. And think that our only source is your writings.

Most of the people here have experienced before what you have experiencing now. We also witness hundreds of cases here. Some of the things you thought would work seen after many experiences just didn't work. The people here didn't want you make the same mistakes they did.

"I didn't realize I had a timeline" Even this sentence says a lot in itself. Right now, she should have been struggling to fix everything she had destroyed. But she still thinks she has time to continue what she's doing and is looking for other ways. Even if we think optimistically, here we see someone who doesn't know what to do and does the wrong thing (not talking about the A, but her actions after it). And this seems too optimistic to me, frankly.

There is saying here, "don't believe any single word and believe half of you see". That NC message doesn't mean much, she may have even sent it while she was with the AP.

I'm not saying things happened like this, I just want to remind you of the possibilities. Don't think she won't do it, she's already done things that you thought she wouldn't do, she's not the person you think you know anymore.

It puts pressure on her to make a decision she needs time to make, and it might not then be the right one.

How long did it take her to decide to throw away her 10-year marriage and family? She has to make a decision right away, and her decision will show her intention to remain committed to her marriage and family. This is not the case for you, you need to know the whole truth and see if you can live with it.

[This message edited by guvensiz at 10:54 AM, April 11th (Sunday)]

Read up on the 180.

Right now you are still in shock. Let her stew for awhile.

At this time your thoughts are all over the place.

Back off, read up. The knowledge will help you.

Talking to her right now won’t get you much but your actions will help.

[This message edited by Marz at 2:41 AM, April 11th (Sunday)]

Your wife is not thinking and acting like the wife you knew.

With that in mind your letter to her has some value. You are letting her know your position. Unfortunately she may view it as veiled threats and she may react in a way that you may not expect.

I’m sure you are aware of that response. She’s with an irrational mind in some respects right now. If you view her Affair like an addiction you can understand her mindset.

She cannot arbitrarily change the marriage b/c SHE wants to “live in the country”. As you stated you have a business and your lives are in a different location. And I believe it’s just an excuse to justify the affair.

Her response “she didn’t know she had a timeline” is utter crap. She knows cheating is unacceptable. She’s just trying to continue her childish behavior to get what she wants as long as she can.

That comment right there proves she’s not R material b/c she has no remorse.

I hope this helps you.

My WW’s plan was to leave me and set up house with the AP. I knew intellectually that my life as I knew it was over but, like you, I was in shock. I couldn’t accept it emotionally so I tried to salvage what I could.

Mate, your marriage is over. The moment she had an affair, she killed it. It cannot be undone. No amount of wishful thinking can change that. You cannot nice her back.

Having said that, my DD was almost 4 years ago and we are in reconciliation so building something new IS POSSIBLE, but this is not the time to consider that. It may seems counterintuitive- you feel like your world is collapsing around you and we are asking you not to salvage what you can. Like you are drowning and we are saying not to save yourself and your family. But that’s not it at all.

It’s like trying to rebuild a house during the earthquake. You don’t know what the landslides, the fires, the fault raptures will destroy. You don’t yet know if you will be able or willing to rebuild. You really don’t yet appreciate how deceitful Waywards can be. Cheats lie. THEY LIE.

The odds are she’s at his place not at her sisters. The odds are the NC is a lie. The odds are she will continue to see him as long as she’s in the countryside. The odds are she wants out and will only stay with you as plan B. She may not own her actions and always paint it as a wish to return to the countryside.

This is the collective evidence of BS on this site. Our Waywards aren’t special and neither is yours, they are predictable. The Woman you thought you married is not the person you are dealing with now. Remember that. She’s not the woman in the weeding pictures, she’s not the person you fell in love with. She’s this person who can lie, deceive and abandon you. She can burn your world without a seconds thought. Don’t take it from me, just look at what she’s doing.

Mate, your journey will be a long hard one. Do yourself a favour and file for divorce, your marriage is dead anyway. You owe it to future you. You can always stop the process if she comes back and is remorseful, you can then build something new. If she doesn’t want to come back? You are no worse off, you’ve saved yourself months and even years of limbo and uncertainty.

You need to own your destiny. Don’t be afraid of her “making the wrong choice”, she already has. What you are afraid of has already happened. You just need to catch up.

Thanks for these replies. There's some great advice here. The hardest thing to accept is that she is no longer the woman I married. Not even the woman I knew 4 weeks ago. She's shown who she truly is, which is someone who does not care about me.

She contacted me via text earlier asking if the kids and I were ok. I was very short with her.

She has just sent me another message saying she is feeling sad and wishes she was cuddled up with me but she's afraid to come home.

I'm going to reply with "You need to come back and see your children" and just leave it at that.

Honestly, I f'ing hate having to play these games.

I am definitely feeling right now that it's over. All your messages, and of course my own heart, tell me that it was she who killed it, and she will only ever have herself to blame. I'm not going to ever do the "pick me" dance again. I really hope when she grows up she realizes the cost of her cheating, but maybe by then I could care less if she has.

"my fear is that I move up there, realize after a few months it's not what I thought it would be and want to come back, but by then it's too late, you've moved on, and you won't want me."

She's thinking out loud that you're plan B.

Feels good I bet.

Lovely letter, throw it away. It's only 2 days sure, you want to send her something, send her divorce papers not that letter. Sending her divorce papers doesn't mean you're divorced - process will take months. What they mean is wake up, I'm not fucking around here.

Early days, carry on and stay strong.