I'm seriously considering divorce.
The quick story: 42, father of 3 (aged 7,9, 12). Wife had a definate EA, probable PA (but not with the EA). I've got an older posting with the full story. Discovered the EA back in April.
Basically what has happened to get me here is that I can't trust her. I'm sitting on 8 months of trying to mend the relationship. Because she's never revealed the past and lied so much about it, there is so much grey I'm all twisted about. What I do know for sure is that for months she has sworn to me up and down that she is not in contact with the EA. I've accused her of doing it at work and hiding behind the corporate wall. I've kept checking up things and snooping, but over the last three months or so, I was seeing real progress and have been more confident in my wife and trusting.
Then yesterday I find she's got a pre-paid calling card. I hit the redial, and sure enough, she's been using it to call her EA partner. Just the thought that she's pre-meditating the lies she's telling drives me out the door.
We discussed it last night, and I told her I was done. When confronted, she also admitted to emails and phone calls from the office. She knew what was expected and required in the marriage, and chose her own path of more lies and deception.
She wants to work it out. I've left it in her hands that she needs a real game plan on how she thinks she'll rebuild what she's destroyed. I told her we'll talk about it more tonight, but she might call the councilor (whom we stopped seeing 2 months ago) about how to approach this. I no longer think she'll be able to ever gain my trust after so many lies and broken promises.
In the meantime, I've found a good divorce lawyer (man they are expensive). I'm setting up a separate checking account to deposit my xmas bonus in to pay for the divorce and will control where the money goes.
I am torn however about a week long cruise we have scheduled for the end of this month after xmas. Since the divorce is going to take time (the lawyer isn't even taking appointments until after the holiday), and we've got two rooms and non-refundable tickets, I think we should still go as this would be the last "family" vacation. The kids would have issues if we suddenly cancelled it. btw; my parents are also paying for it and the rest of my family (two sisters and their families) are going too (so it's also really complicated). If I cancel, they'll be hurt. If I take her, then divorce, they may be mad. So I was going to approach them and let them know bringing her along is more for the kids (their grandchildren). I think they'll understand.
Just a quick update. She's been such the liar. With the calling card, she claimed to have only used it once. And she did it when one night I decided not to come home. So she admits it was a petty thing and she did it out of anger against me. But it's a lie.
I found out you can request the history of the calling card. They only have the last five calls, but all five have been to him and that's just since mid November (the event she was claiming was back at the begining of October). It was awfully thoughtful of her to even call him Thanksgiving day while the family was all downstairs celebrating the holiday.
It just floors me. We were doing so much better (according to her too). I guess she was better thinking she was finally getting the husband she wanted, and was able to keep this boyfriend on the side hidden.
Racer. I totally hate your going through this. I know the anger you feel. In answer to the cruise I say go. Like you said its nonrefundable. If you two can do that without fighting I dont see why not. Posted via Mobile Device
Sorry to hear this...I don't blame you she is making it near impossible for you to ever be able to trust her.
I think letting your parents know what's going on (since they are paying for it) would be best and I would think they would not want to disrupt your kids' vacation.
I talked to my parents. They are understanding and also see this as my last memorable family trip. Hopefully it will be a memory the kids will cherish before the family life takes a turn. They'll be polite as always.
My wife is also being odd. She's sweet and nice, but writes me a quick email that makes demands I must meet before she is willing to tell me about everything. One of them that torques me off is that I must prove to her that whatever she tells me, she needs to be able to trust me not to share it with anyone. Basically I have told her that a lot of what I've discovered I've bounced off my sister to see if I'm reading it right and not over-reacting. For now, I'm being a bit evil and taking a page out of her book: I told her what she wanted to hear to avoid addressing the issue (I need my support, and that means they need to know what is going on).
Kinda annoying that she is lecturing me on trust.
Meanwhile, I've set up some private counciling and am playing the part of the happy ignorant husband. Hopefully the councilor can give me some guidance on how to get off the fence since I still keep jumping, but just can't seem to let go even knowing that things won't change with her.
I'm glad your parents are understanding about the trip. Since you are still somewhat on the fence as to what you will do, keep the scenerio in your head that if you should work things out and stay married, how much would you want your family to know down the road? They may resent her and look at her differently & once you fill them in, it's up to them how they feel about her going forward...just a thought...I do understand you need support...just don't know what level of detail they need to know.
Yes, involving my family could be troubling. If we do work it out, our relationship with each other's in-laws won't be the same. Luckily, both sets of parents are very supportive. The damage is already done, but I probably won't share any additional information she gives me particularly if she confirms PA's. I've already scheduled counciling for Thursday to help me interpret and come to terms with whatever she tells me at our planned discussion on Tuesday night.
Pushed up my ultimatium discussion with her to last night. She admitted to a PA that started Oct'08 and went through Mar'09. So my discovery was about a month after. It is nice to at least know for sure now. She's also been having an EA that's lasted from Mar'09 and is still continuing... but she's still claiming that one is harmless (even though I've repetitively told her it would end the marriage over the last 8 months)...
So, now I'm just trying to cope with the emotions. This would be so much easier if I could just stop being in love with her.
Cruise is still on though she keeps threatening to not go. I am still on the road to divorce though and giving her just a couple short weeks to show me she is worth it (and she’s failing at it miserably). It’s odd, I’m sort of at peace now as far as the relationship. It’s hard to explain. I’ve just sort of adjusted to the fact that she is never going to owe up to her own mistakes and there isn’t anything I can do about it. So now when I’m with her, I just want to finish serving my time and get enough out of her that I can get closure with myself. It’s sort of like savoring something before you have to let it go. I enjoy spending time with her without going through the emotional turmoil of second guessing what else I’ll discover. I know enough now that I can see we really don’t have a future unless something drastically changes in her. There’s even a perverse pleasure watching her scramble around sorting out some new lie when I hit her with a new question like my latest discovery.
During her confession, she mentioned that she went over to his house while I was racing one day. Thing is, I never raced during her PA dates she gave me. Cross referencing with my log and the call log, I pin pointed that there was only one day this was even possible. It was a month after we had started marriage counciling. So I hit her with the question, and she looked like a deer in the headlights. She did everything in the liar book; tried changing subjects, gas lighting (I’m insane), staying silent, telling me she couldn’t remember, she needed a calendar, making other plausible interpretations of the logs, etc. Eventually I gave up trying to get her to say it, but I’m sure she did it and she just doesn’t want to admit it since that’s 3 months after she said it ended, a month after denying any affairs to our councilor, and less than a week after “being sincerely honest”. It doesn’t really bother me that much anymore. That’s just who she is now; She’s a scared little girl who’s really can’t let anyone else see her as the bad guy; that was supposed to be my job.
Wow, she went overboard today. This morning she calls from work. She's having a bad day. So she starts asking if she can quit her job. I play along since I seriously doubted she meant it given where we are both financially and in our marriage. But it sorta started sounding like she was half serious.
After getting off the phone, I started wondering if this is some sort of ploy to financially hook me into the marriage since she really isn't trying to win me back, or maybe she's looking for substantial alimony. So I sent her an email basically telling her that this is a bad time to consider quitting, and I have this fear she may be doing it to manipulate the probable divorce and just needed to get it down in writing that if she does this, she's making her own choice to abandon a good paying job. Her decision will not affect mine. I still expect that if she wants to save our marriage, she'll start acting like it's her only priority. I was appologetic, stated that it's probably just my own insecurities and paranoia, but it's something I feel I have to do just in case.
That set her off..... Now she isn't going on the cruise. I'm obviously not wanting to be her friend anymore. We're obviously getting a divorce because I'm planning for it. So on and so on. She's acting like our 12 year old. She also is acting dumb that I've even mentioned that the ball is in her court to sort out and come up with a game plan if she wants to avoid a divorce (she's done very little to convince me she's doing jack squat besides ignoring there is anything wrong). Being nice alone won't fix us.
Talked to my family again. They want her to go, and also see this as an opportunity for us and a happy memory for the kids. They would never consider making her feel uncomfortable, but if she doesn't go wasting several thousand dollars and casting a shadow over their family vacation, that's the final straw for them (and I haven't even told them about the PA). I don't even know what she's thinking she'll tell the kids. She's just so freakin petty and unable to see ramifications of her rash decisions.
She's flopped around again and back on the cruise. I had a day of the cold shoulder, then we talked. She's tired of being "threatened". I keep telling her that it isn't a threat, just where I'm at. I've spent 8 months trying to reconcile and she's ignored my needs, the councilor's advice, and just done her own thing. Her way isn't going to work since it's just window dressing and she's still talking to her EM partner. She keeps asking me why the need to do this quick, so I've just stuck to my guns and said by January we'll be at "fixing" for 9 months without a lot progress. I need to see progress and effort from her or it's time for me to move on.
So anyway, now she's saying she'll try harder and read the self-help book for ideas on how to go about it. I'm back in waiting mode to see if this is just more talk from her without any actions.
One that does concern me is that she brought up suicide again. She's done this several times over the last year. I haven't been all that supportive, because she seems to bring it up as a way to get me to back down. I've told her if she's seriously thinking about it, she needs to see a professional since those issues are beyond what I can do for her. She keeps telling me that I'm the one who makes her feel this way. I've suggested that I'm probably just the catalist (a reminder of her guilt), but it's really her own feelings that are doing this. I hardly have that much control over her.
Now I'm in this section
