SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I’m sorry that you had to go through this ordeal and that your kids had to witness the cataclysmic imploding of your marriage. But now you know you’re not crazy and your suspicions were validated.

Your wife is in for a rude awakening. While there are certainly no shortage of men who are willing to sleep with her on the side, there will be far fewer that are interested in committing to a relationship with her, especially given her sordid history. I think you need to brace yourself for the possibility that in a few months or years from now, she will come back groveling for a second chance.

Lastly, I just had a question about her 2-year post: how likely do you think it is that she will give you full custody and pay alimony so she can go on this post? Is that something you would be open to considering?

If my W and I could agree on what our M would be going forward, we could R.

Sisoon is 100% correct there, and it’s in the vein I was suggesting some time back. IF you can agree on what you want, you can reconcile.
Well… you and your wife don’t agree. That is – you agree to what you want, but she wants something different.

This does not have to represent a failure on your half or that the last years have been wasted. What it does present however is that you need to decide how you want your future to be. Your next years.

I think it can help a lot to take the hate and the fear out of the equation. What your wife does next isn’t the issue, nor is her future happiness your business. It doesn’t matter if she realized three years from now that she made a mistake or whatever. What matters now is that you – YOU – realize what you need to live a good life, what you need to do to reach that life and what you need to avoid.

Remove as much anger and resentment as you can and focus on what is best for YOUR future. I fully understand you feel pain, a sense of failure and maybe even a need for some revenge or payback. Just realize that no matter how this ends she will be involved in your kids lives, and it’s to THEIR advantage that she (eventually) be happy.

IMHO your best path now is to talk to an attorney and ask for the fair, expected result or outcome of a divorce. Like it or not her behaviors won’t impact the result in any major way. The more you two can agree to before filing the easier and cheaper the process will be.

Your goal isn’t to make her pay or make her feel pain. Your goal is that YOU move on and can have the type of life you want. That might be with a new partner some years from now, or it might be alone. You and your then-ex will probably be in some contact due to the kids, but her future happiness, finances and fate are really of little concern to you other than how they might impact the kids.

G'day everyone. Sorry for the radio silence, but the last week and a half have been true hell.

To all the people that have posted since with advice and well wishes; thank you from the bottom of my weary heart. I have to admit, my friends have stepped up magnificently since, well separation day a week and a bit ago, and have been absolute rocks.

I don't think I have cried so hard in all my life. My eyes hurt from a mixture of overuse and lack of sleep. I will admit that things are getting easier, and I'm at the point where I almost, ALMOST, feel sorry for my soon-to-be ex. I'm so glad that during this process, I trusted my gut the whole way. The sheer level of deceit and ongoing poor decision making she was engaging in to keep these balls juggling in the air just boggles my mind. The nights last year where I would come to bed to find her in tears; it wasn't tears of desperation at my failings; she admits it was the guilt she was carrying of knowing that if I found out , it was all over. Why then she'd decided to put the shotgun to the marriage's forehead and pull the trigger by 'seeing how a relationship with him might look' just baffles me.

I think guilt has hit her like a ton of bricks. I am keeping our beautiful family home, and she literally today picks up the keys to the Defence-provided dogbox she's been allocated. I lie, it's a nice house, but she's gone from an expansive family home with immaculate gardens to a cookie-cutter estate home that very nearly touches the next door neighbour's roof. She's had to buy an entire new house worth of furniture. I haven't been able to talk to her in any meaningful fashion as the pain is still to near for me. My STD tests have all come back negative (thankfully), so I duly informed her. More than she did for me.

On the plus side, we are engaging a lawyer who specialises in ultimately amicable divorces, so that's a plus. I somewhat angrily mentioned to her the other night that she does the wrong thing and comes out essentially ahead in this situation; she gets a cash lump sum payout and I get to add 400k to the mortgage in an environment of rising interest rates. Interestingly she said, 'noting my poor behaviour, there is nothing saying we have to split 50/50.' I think it's dawning on her how much hurt her selfishness has caused. She has said, 'I know exactly what I have ruined and that I likely won't ever get it back again, and I take responsibility for it.'

@Rastinan, you are correct that the ADF looks poorly on infidelity. What this guy doesn't realise is that I am academy classmates with his two senior supervisors, and I play ice hockey with the admiral in charge of their division. Life for this guy is about to get very miserable. He's also sniffing around our city for a job outside in uniform in the industry; he also doesn't realise that most of my classmates/friends are now the talent scouts/senior managers for most of the big Defence companies in town. His name is now mud, and I have a few very good friends who are as we speak actively sabotaging his job chances. Play silly games....

Her posting to the other city is over, and it will cost her in regards to promotion and progression as that role was very much a 'stepping stone' to her next rank. I told her that I will not be assuming a 99% parenting role while she gets to live her best free life - she either co-parents properly or else I take full custody, and probably the likelihood that the kids will grow to resent her accordingly.

It was my birthday the other day and she sent me a voucher with a card saying 'I know this birthday is a tough one, but I love and care for you and can't wait to blow out the candles on your cake with the kids next year.' It was petty, but I emailed her back and said 'keep the voucher, I need nothing from you', and promptly transferred back the monetary amount back to her bank account. I was fuming. Especially when the voucher was for a store regarding a hobby of mine that she used as a weapon to whinge to her friends about me for. The nerve, how dare I have a creative hobby I did from time to time!

I'm off to the States for work this week - I can't wait to get out of my head for a while. If anyone is in DC or Huntsville, hit me up!

From your July 10th post:

I kicked her out and told her it was over when we got home, and she packed a bag and moved to a friend's place. And here we are. It has been a day or so and I have never cried so hard in all my life.

^^^ tears of joy I hope.

The way you've described your stbx and your marriage, it's about time you kicked her out and ended it. No sane, monogamous man should have to endure what she's put you through.

I don't think she has it in her to live in a monogamous marriage. That's sometimes the case with infidelity in marriage, the wife has no business being married to one man.

Be kind to yourself as much as you can the next few weeks, you've earned it and it will be help you to get a spring back in your step. She's battered you about pretty good.

Your wife may have some surprises left for you yet so try to keep your life simple, consult with your lawyer and stick to your game plan. Lot on your plate right now ending your marriage and being the adult looking after your girls.

Stay strong friend. You are taking this as measured steps and doing this wisely.
You will start to feel peace, and happiness w/ your kiddos again, when she is fully out and the only discussions you need to have are who had the kids when financials.

Be careful, though a lot of women when they feel shame, and embarassement will attempt to manipulate the situation to not be the bad guy. Keep a VAR on you when in person. Dont say not my STBXW. There are plenty of men here who can tell you they thought the same, and some fall BS claim was made to make them look bad or even have the cops show up.

Protect those kids and yourself just like you protect your country.

It is what it is.
That’s the way life usually plays out – we deal with reality rather than fantasy.

In an earlier post I questioned your statement about divorce costing you 100s of thousands of dollars. You mentioned how your kids will suffer. You now talk about how she’s sacrificing so much of worldly possessions to be with her OM.

Friend – stay with reality. Try as you can to cut the drama. At the end of the day it’s reality you need to deal with. People divorce all the time and people go on to live good lives after divorce. It’s not the end of the world, doesn’t cost hundreds of thousands and doesn’t create dysfunctional and miserable kids.

Your happiness is not dependent on her unhappiness.
You do not want her to remain married because you are the more economic option.
It’s not like family and friends score you two and the one with more points wins.
People that divorce usually don’t interact too much after the divorce. It’s not as if you need to be friends, not any more than you need to be enemies.

I get it that it hurts, but I can also more-or-less guarantee that the further along you go the less pain there will be. A big and classic survey done by some Ivy-league university queried thousands of divorced people. When asked 12 months after the divorce, a very large portion admitted regret for divorcing and stated that in retrospect the issues could maybe have been dealt with. Same group asked at the 18 month mark a VAST majority (something over 80%) did not regret the divorce and were extremely happy.

The nights last year where I would come to bed to find her in tears; it wasn't tears of desperation at my failings; she admits it was the guilt she was carrying of knowing that if I found out , it was all over. Why then she'd decided to put the shotgun to the marriage's forehead and pull the trigger by 'seeing how a relationship with him might look' just baffles me.

I think guilt has hit her like a ton of bricks.

Many cheaters claim to have had intense feelings of guilt. I don't know if that's always a believable claim though. We all do things sometimes which make us feel guilty, so most of us can sympathize with how that feels. Who hasn't gone in for another slice of chocolate cake when we knew we couldn't afford the calories, right? But because it's a familiar emotion which tends to elicit sympathy in us, we can't always trust that we're not being manipulated by it. It's not hard for someone who has done us a truly egregious wrong to tell us something they think we want to hear, and after suffering an intimate betrayal, we REALLY want to hear that the perpetrator is sorry and that they feel bad.

It's possible that the emotion you're detecting here is Loss. Loss will elicit sadness and regret, and those emotions are real so what you're observing are REAL emotions. Maybe I'm a bit cynical, but it doesn't stand to reason for me that someone who was crying themselves to sleep at night because they were so sorry for their actions would attempt to manipulate you into an open marriage. If I walk the proverbial mile here, the last thing I'm thinking about if I'm truly remorseful is how I can have my cake and eat it too. This wasn't her first affair. Refer back to your thread title, "after nine years of R". She KNEW better. But she dragged you to MC and tried to pull the "I'm poly" shtick, and then.. incredulously DOUBLED DOWN on it!
That doesn't sound like somebody with a guilty conscience to me.

Yours are the boots on the ground, of course. Just bear in mind that your WW knows you pretty well. Her manipulations at this point might not be of a Machiavellian nature, but she knows where your buttons are. She's installed quite a few of them herself. Trust your logic. If something doesn't seem logical, it probably isn't.

I do hope your trip will be a pleasant diversion and that you'll get some distance and clarity. Remember that you're going to be okay and that you'll continue to be a great dad and your kids will continue to thrive. Dealing with infidelity sucks as you well know, but you do eventually come out the other side.

Bump!

Snow to arm pits,

I agree with those forums. If my wife ever asked for open marriage, divorce papers would be served before the ink is dry.

It, imo, is disgusting and immoral behavior but I don't know why some people struggle with the topic.

There is no struggle here.

That was a bloody rollercoaster of a read.

I must be less cynical than I used to be as I was hopeful until I realised 2013 was very likely rugswept (I tried that too - thank fuck he wasn’t as good at it as I am) and when you mentioned her blameshifting. It was all downhill from there.

Wayward thinking hasn’t changed much since 2012 - I suspect it hasn’t changed much since we were living in caves.

There was a quote here when I was a regular "in 10 years time no-one will give a shit".

I’m just over 10 years out and can confirm this is 100% true. I still think what he did was shitty but it doesn’t leave me with that sticky black tar of betrayal all over me anymore.

Bigger’s last post here is a goldmine. Read and reread it.

To us this is a horrible break up - to our kids it’s their mum and dad.

My kids were 4 and 2 when we broke up. They’re now 14 and 12 and have always known why we broke up in an age appropriate way which has evolved over the years (questions get pointier as they get older).

He was a shit husband to me but he’s their dad and they love him - he’s important to them. I’m glad they have both of us actively in their lives.

We had about a year of nasty drama (which was terrible for me and them) then a few years of frostiness but it’s all pretty easy breezy these days.

I hope you’re doing OK. I hope you’re in IC as the first year of firsts was pretty brutal in my experience. Scorched earth burns everyone.

You’re going to be fine and your kids are going to be fine. Just got to get through this shit part with as little damage as possible.

As much as I bristled at another common saying here at the time I really did stop hating him when I stopped loving him.

Karma might come one day and if it does I hope you find yourself not particularly moved by it. I cried happy tears when I realised I was legit sad for him and the kids when his marriage to OW ended. I would have bet my right tit on that never happening. I never thought I’d get past the hurt/anger.

I kept myself in it longer than I care to admit to but I did get past it. You will too.

I know this birthday is a tough one, but I love and care for you and can't wait to blow out the candles on your cake with the kids next year.

What "next year"? Is she delusional, arrogant, or just stupid?

Bluer- why narrow it down? Lol. She’s all three.

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to give everyone an update and how this has all transpired nearly three months out. Things have been very up and down, but overall the trajectory is moving upwards in regards to me coping and my general outlook. My WW moved out (basically while I was away in the US for work), and her life is now looking a lot different than it was before. I have the kids every other week which isn’t ideal, as I miss them desperately on my off week. This has also raised my ire.

For what it’s worth, I have also managed to piece together the broad timeline (no thanks to her) of what happened. She slept with the married polyamorist while away on course (she said they were both drunk) in Nov 2020, and as discussed before, she was one of three side-pieces he was ploughing/maintaining relations with on the side of his marriage. In talks with my therapist/counsellor, we have surmised that he would have chosen her as the perfect side fling; a married woman with kids would not have been amenable to getting ‘emotionally needy’, and so he could have screwed around without worrying that she’d get too clingy…or that she’d open her mouth if things went south with them both. I am guessing she did get slightly clingy around the end of 2021, and he completely cut her away around Nov/Dec of that year. He allegedly got divorced and also went ‘monogamous’ with one of the girlfriends.

This would time in with her messages to her childhood friend bemoaning that she was ‘going through a break up’ and that she ‘as selfish as it sounds, she had a lot invested’ in that relationship. To add insult to injury, barely a month or so later would see her logging into that dating app to look for polyamorous partners. It was like she NEEDED to replace her ex-bf with someone else – all while gas-lighting me and telling me that we needed marriage counselling to connect in a better fashion. Bear in mind that she told the therapist at this time that she was ‘85% happy with the marriage and that I was a loving husband and father’. I know I should have accepted this by now, but thinking about the sheer audacity and betrayal (especially in light of what I went through in her original affair in 2013), has just made me angrier and angrier since separating. I’m not going to lie, I have been in some dark places the last few weeks, and every time I think about how much she has screwed our family, screwed the kids, and screwed our finances and futures; I just sob.

We are going through the financial separation now, and I will have to pay her out around $300k via a re-mortgage of the house. This is on top of the ~$90k she has already been given via taking our second car on (which was completely paid off), as well as money from the joint offset account to re-establish herself. All in all, her dalliance with this beta-male PoS has cost me (and vicariously our daughters) ~$400k. The thing that enrages me is that is feels like she is being rewarded for her extremely poor life decisions – she gets a nice subsidised house to rent and a six-figure payout put into her bank account, and I get a massive mortgage to pay off in a period of rising interest rates. Yeah sure, I get the house – but what’s the point when the whole point of me keeping it is to give the kids some stability in their family home?

I still can’t believe I am divorced. It’s like a bad dream I can’t wake up from. Ex-WW is by all accounts, a depressed human being. My daughter’s babysitter told me the other night that my oldest told her that ‘Mum cries in her bedroom all the time’. In my ex-WW’s interactions with me, she is overly friendly, and I get the sense that she is genuinely bewildered that I have no intention of being friendly with her. I don’t respond to her conversational texts, and I refuse to engage on any topic that doesn’t revolve around finances or the kids. It’s hard to reconcile my own (necessary) attitude to her against the fact that mere months ago I adored her and had so many plans for our future together. Life really does change rapidly.

It’s not all doom and gloom though. I jokingly got on some dating apps – at my friends insistence I might add, they wanted to live vicariously through me I suspect! – and I have been somewhat amused to find that the majority of women that message my 43yr old arse are in their 30s and 20s. This has been somewhat of a revelation, and I brought this up with my counsellor. He grinned at me and said, ‘you have no idea how much academic work has been done on this topic!’ Basically, he said that women in their 30s and 20s likely see a (well-rounded?) older man as quote, ‘having their proverbial in a sock and therefore present as a very safe option.’ I have gone on a few casual dates, and women seem to have absolutely zero problem with me having three kids. To quote one, ‘I find it very attractive that a man can raise three kids practically alone.’ I caught up with an old female school mate the other week who has given up on online dating – she is extremely attractive and when I asked why, she lamented that the only people who message her are ‘guys in their late 40s and 50s inundate me, I get barely anything from guys my own age noting I have a kid.’ This floored me. And while I don’t wish my ex-WW any sadness, my counsellor indicated that her dating pool is going to be completely different from mine accordingly. Add on a reputation for cheating, and it isn’t looking good for her. It’s somewhat nice to know that cheaters eventually get theirs in the end. To also quote my counsellor, "I know it seems like she is being rewarded at this point in time – but believe me, the chickens will come home to roost for your ex, and she will reap what she has sown."

I should also add that for anyone going through this, or about to go through this, I can offer this advice: GET A COUNSELLOR/THERAPIST. Funny quotes aside, mine has been a godsend. Even if at times it’s just to be a neutral sounding board to vent frustration.

I have started very tentatively started seeing someone; she works in my field. She’s 9 years younger, and does not give one flying wahzoo that I have three kids. She got out of a relationship 6 months ago that involved infidelity, and the concept of cheating horrifies her. I am in no rush to start anything – but it’s nice to know that there are good people out there and that the future looks brighter, whichever way it takes me.

I’d also like to thank all of the people who offered very sagely advice over this whole ordeal; I still cling to a lot of the advice very fondly. This site is fantastic – albeit we all wish we never heard of it! If anyone has any questions, ask away.

Also BluerthanBlue, yes she is delusional. She thinks we'll do all the same family stuff, that we'll do brunches on the weekend, and that I'll just forget about the part where she chose to denigrate me as a husband to her friends while actively dating and screwing a married workmate who had two other girlfriends for over a year without protection. F*@% her, and f*&% that.

[This message edited by Hurthalo at 5:39 AM, Friday, September 30th]

@Hurthalo, I have just started following this thread. I am really happy to hear that you are moving on w elan.

Is there any way that you can get for yourself a more advantageous financial settlement in the divorce? She noted herself her poor behaviour and no need for you to settle 50-50. Of course I am not familiar with Australian law however.

Is there any way that you can get for yourself a more advantageous financial settlement in the divorce? She noted herself her poor behaviour and no need for you to settle 50-50. Of course I am not familiar with Australian law however.

She has agreed to a 40-60 split at this point, so this is really the fair, and best, of a bad situation.

We have no 'at fault' divorces in Australia, so adultery is not grounds for advantage in regards to finances. I earn double her salary (and she's already on good money), so while it will hurt greatly in the short term, it will all be fine. She has been amicable on that front, and we plan on splitting the finances painlessly.

It still hurts though to be set back a good decade on the mortgage though.

I manage a divorced guy who has his kids more-or-less every other week. His way to deal with it is to work the weeks they are with their mom, do the "boring" chores at home and preparing so he can spend prime-time with the kids when they are with him.
He says it’s a delicate balance: Like you want your kids to do chores, but maybe time spent buying groceries, mopping the floors, mowing the lawn or cleaning the bathrooms isn’t time well spent with kids. Get that over with when they aren’t there, as well as 12 hour days to meet deadlines or finish work. Because of his flexibility (and capabilities) I’m fine with him working the occasional 6 hour day when he has the kids.
This guy sometimes insists that he sees his kids more after the divorce, because pre-divorce he might work 8-10 hours, commute, do chores and maybe spend breakfast and dinner around the kids. Being around isn’t the same as being there.

Hurt – when one door closes another one opens. Once this is over – the ink dry and everyone settled – you might realize that the "dream house" isn’t much of a dream. That 300k mortgage is just for now, and I’m guessing it’s backed by a home that’s worth more than that amount. Otherwise, the bank wouldn’t have given you that money. Don’t see it as an encumbrance, but rather look at it as parked money. N months/years from not THAT house won’t be a home anymore. You could downsize, relocate, heck… remarry… whatever. Who knows – you might even have made the home you and your ex bought as YOUR dream-house into what is the new, single Hurthalo dream-house and feel it worth every penny.
If your "pain" is 10 years extra on the mortgage… well… now would be a great time to focus on your finances since its all in your control and not shared with anyone else. Add a 10% extra payment per month to the mortgage and those 10 years will chip away like a steak in front of a Labrador.

Your goal isn’t to make her pay or make her feel pain. Your goal is that YOU move on and can have the type of life you want.

Thanks for the update. You're moving on successfully, which is great!

It sounds like she is suffering her consequences emotionally. Money does not make you happy in life, the financial part is not a reward for her compared to regret and sorrow she is apparently feeling. I would encourage you to reframe that part of your thinking, over time, to find a degree of pity and empathy for her. That doesn't mean you have to interact with her any more than you do but try to diminish the anger. It usually happens naturally but a little effort in that regard might be beneficial for your own spirit.

Strength brother, children are always number 1.
Be a grey rock in relation to the EX. Only children stuff. Even that can be through emails and texts. No need for meals and dating discussions. She is the birth mother that is it, she isn’t your bestie anymore. Remember all of the blame shifting. Is she going to pay child support?
Good luck and one day at a time.

Did your WW try to fight you on the divorce and ask for another chance or was she agreeable?

Bigger: I know what you mean, but it is small consolation for me as I never wanted to be a part-time parent; this bollocks siutation has been foisted on me by a WexW who has made the worst possible life choices. Unfortuantely, that has resulted in it affecting the kids as well. I know what you mean though mate, it means I do make a higher effort when they are here - but I am also miserable when they aren't.

Trdd: I am trying to work on the anger, but it is still so raw. The AUDACITY to cheat so comprehensively and to impact the lives of her children in doing so (not to mention to end up with not only no husband, but the OM cutting her away as well), just infuriates me. This has all been for nothing. If we didn't have kids, I'd never talk to her again. I do want to forgive her though, not for her benefit of course, but for my own - as you so wisely hinted at!

Buffer: That my supposed best friend and lover was capable of such calculated deceit is what gets me. I'm not the lone ranger obviously, but I did nothing (or very minimally) wrong. I don't deserve this sh$#t sandwich. She's not paying child support, we are child rearing 50/50 and have agreed to just meet costs appropriately.

Dude67: I think she knew she wasn't going to get a third chance. She has accepted it I think, albeit painfully. I don't think she's the type of person who should be married.