# Here's my story, sorry to be here...Part 1



## ffghtr67 (Jul 23, 2012)

I am a new poster here to the forums and I wanted to record my story for a few reasons; I have been lurking around this forum and others regarding infidelity for about ten months and finally felt strong enough to tell my story and let others learn from my experiences and divorce. I just wanted to get this out. If this needs moved to another category, I apologize and understand. Sometimes I start to emotionally trigger when I am reading these forums so I am going to try to write this in several parts over a few weeks. I may not get all of the abbreviations correct and I’m sure this will be a very long post so I hope those reading it will give me some help and advice on how to deal with these very personal issues. 
I guess the moral of my story to those reading it who may feel that their spouse is betraying them is to really take the information that is here in these forums to heart and use it correctly. Trust your gut above everything else. I think this is more for me though and trying to maintain my sanity and move on. I never thought my wife would cheat on me and our marriage would end, but that is exactly what has happened. If I had just slowed down and controlled my emotions and actions, I think my divorce and current life would be much different. I wish I had just gathered evidence and gotten my ducks into a row but I didn’t, and this has been a difficult situation to correct. I may have been able to save us...I am not sure. I have relatively few other regrets though and I am learning to live this new life I have been given, even though it is something I never asked for or wanted. 

I really have gained a lot of insight and help just from reading the stories that are written here. It has been a long time since d-day#1 and d-day#2 and I still cannot believe that I have experienced these series of events in my life. I still sometimes wonder what my life will be like two, three or ten years down the road. I wanted to have a place to put all of this crap down and leave it…if that makes any sense. I have been carrying it around mentally for so long. I hope to sort of use this as a form of therapy and maybe get some advice from the people who have dealt with infidelity and came out the other side a better, more confident and happy person. I want to move on. I still love and think about my ex-wife daily, although I know our relationship is over and she has become unlovable to me. I am learning how to cope with what has happened. 

To first describe myself, I am a firefighter and paramedic. I have been on the job for over a decade. I love my job and have always taken pride in my career choice and being able to provide for my family. I have always wanted to be promoted up the ranks and eventually see myself as a fire chief and have worked hard to achieve that goal. I have completed several college degrees over the past 20 years and was trying to finish graduate school when my life fell apart. This divorce has effected my career negatively and I hope to keep a positive attitude and become the type of fireman and leader I have always hoped to be. 

I have always worked 2 or 3 side jobs through the marriage to support and provide for my family. I met my ex-wife in 1988, a few weeks after high school, began dating and we married in 1991. We were married for 21 years, I thought happily, but in retrospect we had a lot of problems that neither of us ever addressed or worked on. She was a victim of attempted sexual abuse at the hands of her father as a child and then had a second sexual assault incident occur with a couple of boys while she was in junior high school. I knew about the problems with her Dad but never knew about the second incident until our marriage was ending. We also had an unplanned pregnancy when we were teenagers which ended when my ex got an abortion prior to us getting married. My ex never spoke of her father or received any type of IC for either of these other problems. I think a lot resentment grew as a result of these unspoken-about issues. She was a stay-at-home mom for about 11 years at the beginning of our marriage and went back to work fulltime in an office environment when our youngest son started elementary school. 

We have 4 children together (a 22 year old daughter, and three sons, 19, 16 and 14 years old.) This was the first marriage for both of us. 

To look back now, I see that there were problems with communication, honesty and lies of omission on both of our parts. To be completely honest, I drank often and I regret and wish I hadn’t done that. I am not sure why I did, but it must have hurt her very much to see me drunk and for her to have to baby-sit a drunk for as long as she did, maybe that is why she looked outside of our marriage. I NEVER physically abused her, got arrested, lost a job, got a DUI or wrecked a car, but my drinking contributed to a bad marriage. I said plenty of stupid and hurtful things over our marriage while I was drunk. That doesn’t excuse what she did but I just need to be honest. I was a drunk and she cheated, so that is what caused our marriage to get so bad. 

I thought we had a normal life and lived as most people do; I worried about the bills, credit scores and finances. I provided for the family financially and her role was usually surrounded by the children. I thought that these roles were what she wanted and didn’t view any of our problems as unfixable. I did notice on several occasions that my ex-wife would lie about money, bouncing checks and then hiding bank notices and the mail from me, but I didn’t see that as a big problem. In hindsight, that was a huge issue I wish I would have addressed. A huge lack of communication on both of our parts. She felt very comfortable lying to me and doing whatever she felt necessary to get her way. Not really a partnership, we were just roommates or co-parents who would occasionally have sex. I was a pleaser who just wanted to keep her happy, she was completely adverse to any type of confrontation...this was a horrible mix. 

The problems I first started to really notice were with my ex-wife's lack of boundaries when it came to my co-workers, friends and our kids. 
In 2006 my wife was asked to be a bridesmaid in a wedding and used that occasion to get into shape and become healthy. She said that she didn't want to be the typical "fat mommy bridesmaid." For 6 months prior to the wedding she worked out very hard and went on a strict diet and began to tan. At the wedding, she was a knock-out, by far the most beautiful woman in attendance. I wanted to dance with her and talk to her and tell her how beautiful she looked, but she seemed to want to spend the time flirting and partying with other men and women. This was the first time in our relationship that I noticed how much she liked the attention of others. I felt horrible and began to sulk in a corner and drink. I felt alone and abandoned. As I watched her dance with others I became sadder and sadder and finally left the wedding feeling horrible. The next day, I had to work at the firehouse and I ended up emailing her telling her how beautiful she was but that I felt that she was pulling away from me; I apologized for drinking so much. We never spoke about that incident ever again. 

From that point on, whenever we would attend parties or functions at work, go to sporting events or any kind of school event I would notice little verbal jabs she would throw my way, mean and hurtful things about our marriage and sexual relationship or lack thereof. I would notice her flirt and touch others, men and women, and always have to hug when saying goodbye, even a new acquaintance, and this would get me angry and sad. Once she even kissed a family friend on the lips in front of me, when I confronted her and asked her if she thought that was an appropriate way to greet a friend she took great offense. Her response was that she was "outgoing" and a "people person" and I was an "introvert" with "very little personality." This made me feel angry and disrespected and I would drink even more. Things continued in this manner for several years. 

In May, 2012, I noticed that our 16 year old son was suffering from depression. I wasn’t sure why but I noticed and asked my ex-wife about it. She said that our son was being bullied at school and that he had told her that he wanted to commit suicide. She kind of said this in a matter-of-fact kind of way which I thought was odd and a poor response to a severe problem. I thought this was a very serious issue and it needed handled immediately. I made sure all of the guns and knives where out of the house and got my son into IC. It was then I noticed that my wife had developed a friendship with the dad of my 16 year old son’s best friend. 

This guy was a police officer with a local agency and I would occasionally run into him at emergency scenes. I met him once and he seemed to me to be a dork, kind of a gun nut, a ****y "cop" type but not anyone I would be concerned with my wife finding attractive. I was dead wrong. 

Whenever we went to a school function she always seemed to notice him or bring him up in conversation. We took all the boys to a concert and I noticed that my wife had the dad's cell phone number but not the mom's. When I was at work, my son and his friend would hang out and the dad would come by and pick up his son after. I think now that my son wasn't being bullied at school, he was sad because he was suspicious that his mom was having an affair. 

I have since found out the my ex-wife and the dad would sit outside of my house for long hours and talk and flirt with each other. At first they talked about my son but quickly the talking turned sexual; I think my wife started to begin to have feelings and emotions for this guy at this point and it turned into a physical affair. My daughter began to notice and told my wife that this guy was a creep and asked my wife why this guy was spending so much time at our house when I wasn’t around. I didn’t know it at the time, but my wife told my daughter to "shut up" and not say anything to me. My daughter told my wife that she was going to tell me that this guy was at my house whenever I wasn’t around and my ex-wife told my daughter not to be “such a *****.” I didn’t know any of this stuff was going on because I was at the firehouse or in graduate school. 

Shortly there after, I noticed boundary issues with all of my children when it came to their mother. My wife started to text my 19 DS's ex-girlfriend. She started getting into body modification and took my youngest son to a tattoo parlor so she could get a tattoo. She also got her tongue pierced. She then took $7K and got breast augmentation. I found out that she would take my daughter to a local adult book store to shop. She almost became toxic friends with my daughter, sharing secrets about sex and other topics. When I found out about all of these issues I again confronted my wife and told her that she was treating the kids like they were her friends and not like a parent should. My wife told me that I was trying to control and possess her, and that she felt like I was treating her like a child. 

I also noticed a lot of selfish and childish behavior from my wife when it came to spending and bouncing checks. It seemed like she always had to had a new handbag, heels, her nails done, Victoria's Secret clothes or some other expensive tattoo. When I asked her about it she said, "when I want something, I want it now and when I want something now, I get it." I told her that this was the selfish side of her that I had never seen. 

I started to notice little changes in my wife's behavior in May 2012 and in hindsight the changes were glaring. As many other members have posted in these forums, I think subconsciously I knew that she was cheating on me but I just couldn't bring myself to believe it. I just felt it but I was confused. After the boundary issues began to surface with our children, I began to notice that she was emotionally distant while at the same time becoming more sexually adventurous with me. Every conversation seemed to turn to sex or ended with us eventually having sex. She would text me at work and tell me that she wanted me to come right home and have sex with me whenever I got done at work. These texts were unusual but exciting at the same time. I really was enjoying this new found sex drive that my wife seemed to be experiencing. Little did I know it was because she was being turned on by another man. During our marriage previously, I had always been the one to initiate sex and the sex was vanilla and had become routine. On several occasions during our marriage when our kids were younger she had completely avoided sex with me and refused to become more adventurous or change things up in any way. She had totally minimized and rejected me sexually in the past. I can remember on several occasions when the kids were younger, she refused to have sex with me and would allow the kids to sleep in bed with her sort of like protection so I wouldn't be able to have sex with her. She also would discuss our sex life and her lack of sex drive with our friends in front of me and I thought that was very insensitive and cruel. Nevertheless, I still loved her and tried to make the best out of a bad situation, always hoping that our sex life would improve. 

After she started talking to this police officer, her sexual appetite had been aroused and I noticed but wasn't aware of all the bad things she was doing. She started to call me and want to visit me while I was at the firehouse, but when she got there the conversation was short and really not that significant. I know now what she was doing was just finding out what firehouse I was stationed at for the day and to find out if I knew what was going on. With all of these changes occurring, I really felt like something odd was going on, that she was pulling away and kind of like trying to ask me for permission to leave but she was afraid to go. She had become the classic cake eater, I just didn't know it at the time. 

What finally and undeniably got my attention happened over a 2 week period in June 2012. I was at work and I received 2 text messages from her which were very raw and exotic. I called her kind of in a joking way and asked her what was going on. She said that she was very horny and needed sex right then. I told her I was working and couldn't leave. She said that I didn't understand and that she "needed to feel the real thing" right then. By this time, I realized that if I wasn't there and she needed to feel the "real thing" something bad was going on. Over the next few days, every conversation was odd and seemed to be centered around her sex drive. She also made comments about how she could **** another man in a heartbeat if I let her and how she would like to experience sex with another woman. This was coming from a woman who only a few months before wouldn't watch pornography or seemed even slightly interested in sex. By this time I came out and accused her of having a PA and she denied it. I told her in no uncertain circumstances was I willing to share my wife and marriage with other people and if she had these feelings that she should just be honest so I could go find someone else too. She said that she was only trying to spice up the marriage and that if I wasn't into this type of thing that was ok, she just didn't want me to get bored with her. By this time my head was spinning and I found this forum. I began to read what others had posted here and decided to take a look at her cell phone usage and to my surprise I found that she had been calling, texting, emailing and sending pictures to a phone number and address which I didn't recognize. 

What I should have done was slow down, contact an attorney, place a GPS and VAR, even contact a private investigator but I didn't. This is my biggest regret. I was at work when I first saw the cell phone records and I just exploded...I really wish I had handled D-day#1 better. 

After I found the evidence of all of the cell phone calls I immediately exploded. I was at the firehouse and she was at her office and she just happened to text me and asked how my day was. I responded by asking her who's phone number had she been calling and texting so much. She said that she didn't know what I was talking about and then I told her that I had a copy of the cell phone records and she had better think how she wanted the rest of her life to be from this point on. She then admitted that she had been texting my 16 DS's best friend's dad. I told her that the marriage was over and that I wanted a divorce. My ex quickly left her office and drove to the firehouse and wanted to speak to me. At first she admitted that she had been speaking with this OM but that they were only friends. I told her that I thought that was bull**** because they had texted over 1000 times in the last few days, she finally admitted that they were talking about our marriage and finally that they were sexting but that they had never been physical with one another. I told her that I believed that this was also complete bull**** and that I had been suspicious that she was having an EA and PA for a few weeks prior due to her odd behavior. She denied this and said that I was just trying to get her to admit something that never happened and that she hadn't done anything wrong as this was just "fantasy talk" with another person and she had never and would never act on it. I told her that this was cheating and infidelity. This argument went on for a few minutes until she finally left the firehouse. I was in no shape to work so I was relieved from duty and told to go home. I didn't have a way home since my ex and myself carpooled, so I had to call my Dad to get a ride home. 
When my Dad got to the firehouse, I told him what was going on. He told me that he had something to tell me. My dad said that he had been on his way to a golf outing in the same town as where my wife's office was several months earlier and he had seen my wife meeting with another man at a restaurant. My dad had told my mom and they together decided that it was probably not my wife who he saw and decided not to say anything to me about it. He apologized, but said that he thought he was doing the right thing by not saying anything. I felt like I had just been hit by a truck, I couldn't believe what was happening. 

I finally found my way home and called my wife and told her that if she was willing to talk, I was willing to listen. I believe now that she had gone to the OM's apartment to tell him that I was aware that they were having a PA and he should prepare himself. My wife then drove to my daughter's apartment and confided in my DD that she had been having an EA and PA with this police officer. My DD was shocked and didn't know what to say to her mother other than to listen. 

My wife came back home and for a couple of hours we argued about what had happened. I tried to listen but she was completely defensive and argumentative. She refused to take any responsibility for what had happened and continued to say mean things to me like she had only gone outside of the marriage to find what I wasn't giving her and that the OM had just showed her attention and talked with her and seemed to care and I didn't. She accused me of being a drunk and an absent father, that she had felt like a single parent for a long time and hated it. She just wanted me to take all of the blame for what she had done and refused to take ownership of any of the damage she had caused and said we had just "grown apart." My wife said that she didn't want a divorce but that she also hadn't done anything wrong. This argument went on for hours and she just seemed to be talking in circles and refused to be truthful about what the messages were about, only that she hadn't had sex with this OM. I told her if she wanted to stay in the marriage that she had to change her cell phone# and that she must have NC with this OM and that our sons were not allowed to play together ever again. I also said that we immediately had to start MC to try to save the marriage. I called the OM, he refused to pick up the call, so I left a voicemail telling him that he and his son were to stay away from my family and never to call my wife again. My wife immediately got mad that I did this and said that she didn't think it was right that our DS should lose a friend over her actions. I told her that I didn't care that these were my terms. She grudgingly agreed and we started MC a few days later. The distance in our relationship grew even further and I should have seen that the marriage was well beyond saving but I didn't want to lose her because I loved her. In retrospect, I should have just filed for divorce and never looked back. 

We started MC a few days later and the councilor mainly focused on my drinking and not on my wife's infidelity. I had decided that I would completely stop drinking as a way to show how much I wanted to work on our marriage and vowed to never drink again. My wife agreed to NC with the police officer. During the MC whenever the subject of the text messages came up or what had my wife and the OM had texted each other came up my wife's answers were vague and defensive. The MC said that I was over analyzing the situation and that I needed to focus on rebuilding trust and finally start to communicate with my wife. My wife insisted that she never had a PA with this police officer. I sincerely bought into the MC at first but something just didn't seem right. I had noticed that on D-Day#1 that the OM had texted my wife 2 times and then the messages seemed to just completely stop. I wanted to know what the subject of those texts were. My wife said that she didn't know or that she didn't remember. I thought this just seemed like nonsense. How could you just not remember the last thing you ever said to someone? I asked if she had really ended the relationship or had he decided to end it? My wife said that she didn't know and couldn't control if the OM texted or called again or not. This seemed like a very harsh answer. The counselor seemed to begin to attack me saying that my questions regarding the texts messages was just a sign of my withdrawal from alcohol and that I needed to let it go, that I needed to just needed to get over it because the deeds had already been done. Between my wife and the marriage counselor, I began to believe that no sex had ever occurred despite of what my senses and intuition were telling me. I literally thought I was going crazy. I had been completely gas-lighted for so long that I began to doubt myself and my own beliefs. The MC went on for about a month and I tried to reconnect and reinvest in the relationship. My wife and I started to date again, going out to movies, dinners, baseball games and taking walks at the park and talking. I could tell my wife was not mentally present during any of these "dates" and several times she told me that she missed talking to her "friend" and that the NC was just my way of trying to control her. Several times she would leave the house whenever I tried to discuss our relationship or how we could save the marriage and our family. Oddly, we also began to have the hysterical bonding and became very intimate again. The sex was incredible...I could tell she had learned different positions and had become even more sexually aggressive. This was something I clearly noticed. Occasionally, I would start thinking about our marital problems during the times we were having sex and I couldn't get an erection. My wife would start to cry and say that she didn't want her sex life to be boring like this and she wanted to be with someone who could perform. I told her that I was frustrated and consumed with the fact that she had been in an EA with another man and that my heart was broken and that is why I couldn't get a hard-on. I really tried over the next few weeks to sexually satisfy her but in the back of my mind I knew something was wrong. 

Finally I began to notice that she was "protecting" her purse and that is where I later found a secret cell phone that she had asked my DD to buy for her. 

A few weeks after we started MC, I saw the OM briefly at work. I was not able to confront him but it was clear that he was a coward, was hiding from me and was afraid to look me in the eyes. He quickly got into his vehicle and left the area before any confrontation happened. The next day, I told my wife that I had ran into the OM while working; she seemed to be very concerned with this incident and asked if I had talked to him. I asked her what did it matter what happened if she had done nothing wrong and their texting had just been "fantasy talk" like she said...my wife then said that if I ever started a confrontation with the OM that she would be there to stand between us to stop it. My wife said that I was stupid to be willing to confront him at work and that we were both going to end up getting fired or make the news for a firefighter vs. cop fight. I asked my wife why she cared if he got fired and she came unglued. She said that he had kids and an ex-wife to support and she didn't want to him to suffer because of our drama. Clearly, the OM had not yet told my wife that he had seen me at work. 
I discussed this in MC and was again attacked by both the counselor and my wife for making the situation worse. By now, it was clear that my wife had fallen in love with the OM and didn't care what happened to me. My wife's voice audibly changed when she said his name, her voice got softer...it was obvious that she wanted to be with him and not me. 

I simultaneously noticed that WW started to carry her purse with her everywhere she went. She would take it to the bathroom, move it from room to room when the family was all at home together and then finally started to take it bed with her. I noticed and asked why she was taking her purse to bed with her. My wife said that she was afraid that my 16 DS would try to take her car keys while she was sleeping. This seemed like absolute nonsense; why won't you just take the keys to bed with you instead? I kept this to myself and resolved myself that I was going to have to get into her purse because there was clearly something in there that she was hiding. 

A week later, D-Day#2 happened when I finally had an opportunity to get access to her purse while we were carpooling to work without my wife seeing me. You guessed it, I found a secret cell hidden in the side pocket of her purse. The key pad on the cell phone was locked. My wife then saw that I had taken the phone out of her purse and started to squirm. I asked her whose phone it was and she responded that it was our DD's phone. I then called my DD's phone and the secret phone didn't ring but my DD answered. I told my DD that her mom had her cell phone and that I needed her pin to unlock the keypad. My DD was surprised and confused. My DD said, "I don't know what you are talking about Dad." I ended the call and again asked my wife who's cell phone this was. My wife had a complete breakdown...screaming, trying to grab the phone, attempting to get physical with me to get the phone back. It was actually funny to see her so desperate and I started to laugh just out of the pure exhaustion that I had been suffering for the past few weeks. I had been right the whole time, I finally realized that the police officer had came to my house while I was on duty and flirted with my wife which turned into an EA and finally a PA. I wasn't going crazy, I had been right...I was right. 

I found a parking spot at a local park and finally told my wife that I would not give the phone back until she gave me the pin to unlock the keypad and let me read the messages on the phone. She finally caved and gave me the pin and I read the text messages. 

A word of advice here for those in similar situations...really make sure you want to read the texts prior to doing it. I didn't prepare myself...The texts were horrible, far worse than I ever could have expected. My wife had an intense physical and emotional affair with this police officer for a year prior to me even becoming suspicious, they had planned several sexual liaisons around our family functions, had very indepth discussions regarding my marriage and kids. They also were attempting to set up a Female-Male-Female 3-way with the police officer's current girlfriend. Many of the texts were the police officer asking my wife why she was so attracted to him and she said mostly it was because she knew it drove me crazy, that she enjoyed torturing me. My wife also said horrible things about our children, that she often dreamed that the kids weren't there and her life could just be her and the police officer. 

My wife admitted that she had performed BJ's on him, that she allowed and wanted him to cum in her mouth, had done anal with him often and had realized that anal made her reach orgasm almost instantly and often. She clearly had enjoyed her sexual relationship with police officer far more than sex with me. My wife finally admitted that she had been lying about her relationship with the police officer for months, lying in MC and begged me to please now give her a second chance. I was destroyed. 

Later on D-Day #2, I went running and then returned home and started to go to bed in the guest bedroom that I had been sleeping in off and on since D-Day #1. I decided that since she had been the one to cheat, she should be the one to sleep in the guest bedroom from now on. I also decided to myself and told her that the only way I was ever leaving my house was with a court order so she had just better leave quietly. She refused and said she wasn't going to throw away a 20+ year marriage over a fling, and that she wanted me to say I would work it out. In my frustration and exhaustion that day, I had somehow given her back the secret phone after I sent the police officer a text on it telling him that I had found the phone and requested that he call me. I should have just destroyed the secret phone. He never did call, text or make any contact with me but continued to contact my wife to have sex with her for the next few months. Her continued use of the secret phone is what finally gave me the strength to push for a separation and finally a dissolution. 
My wife wanted me at the time to just say that I would work on our marriage...she begged and cried that I just tell her I was willing to work on it, she said that that was all she wanted. I told her that I didn't know what I wanted but that I was strongly considering a divorce; that I was also willing to go to one more MC session to get the truth out and into the open finally. D-Day #2 was on a Thursday and the earliest we could be seen at MC was on the following Tuesday but our counselor did speak to my wife on the phone and told her that she needed to leave our house since the situation could eventually become dangerous. My wife agreed to begin to pack and finally left on Saturday to stay at my MIL's house until the MC began on Tuesday. 

I was completely stunned by the events of the past few days and had to attend a final class on that Saturday to finish the semester in grad school. During class, I began to cry and had to leave school as many started to see me weeping. It was odd and unusual for many of my classmates to see a grown man having a job like mine, a firefighter, crying in public. I was very embarrassed but didn't care, my life was ruined. 

We attended the Tuesday MC session and it began as the previous sessions had, the counselor asked if had I been drinking since we last met and I said "no." The counselor asked my wife had she had contact with the police officer since we last met and my wife said "yes." The counselor asked my wife if she had an EA or PA with the police officer and my wife said "yes, both." The counselor asked my wife if she was willing to have NC with this police officer to save the marriage and begin MC again truthfully. My wife thought for a moment and then said "no." The counselor asked again are you willing to have NC with the police officer and my wife again said "no." At this point the counselor said that the MC had failed and there really wasn't much more to talk about since WW wasn't willing to have NC with the police officer. 

Something had changed in my wife for the worse from the time I last saw her on D-Day #2 up until the last MC session began. I was pretty much resigned from this point on that divorce was the only option and our marriage was over. I later realized that D-Day#1 and the MC had only driven the PA deeper underground and my wife would never leave the OM; he would eventually and finally reject her. I cant and haven't to this day been able to recognize the person that my wife has become, this serial cheater and apparently, sex addicted woman as the same person that I married and who bore our four beautiful children. She is just lost, a kind of new photograph of her old self that is out of focus. She kind of looks the same but the stress and lines on her face are much deeper and her new haircut, which she loves, makes her look much older. On this day, I finally understood that my wife, best friend and soul mate were gone forever and had been for some time. 

We left the MC office and stopped on the way home at a coffee shop to try to regroup and figure out what we were going to tell the kids about our marriage and pending break up. WW began crying and I tried to get her to open up about what had happened and how things had gotten so messed up. She refused to admit that she loved the OM but said that she knew there was never going to be a future with the police officer. I asked her to just tell me what had happened and after some pauses, she finally told me how he had at first pursued her and eventually wore her down. Eventually she began to pursue him and use him for sex, that the police officer did things to her that I wouldn't or couldn't do. She said that I was either always at work, at school or drunk, and that he made her feel special. She told me in a very calm way that she had decided that she was a submissive and she liked to be dominated and controlled in bed, something I had never done to her. I asked her why she had done this then, why she hadn't told me this was what she wanted? Why hadn't she ever shown any deep remorse or even shown the slightest bit of empathy for the pain I was enduring? Why had she continued this? She said it was just because she was so alone and the police officer made her feel safe and good. After they had sex at his apartment, they would cuddle and talk for hours, that she liked the connection and conversation and often didn't want to leave but knew she had to. WW just cried and remained quiet, she said she knew it was wrong but that she wouldn't stop. She also said she didn't want the house, alimony or my pension, only that she was miserable and wanted out. She began to admit that she had told my DD that she was cheating on me immediately after D-day #1 and that she had asked DD to add her onto her cell phone account so I wouldn't be able to track her cell phone usage and so she could stay in contact with the police officer. DD agreed to do this for my WW. WW also told me that she had told my MIL the week before that she was cheating on me and had planned to end our marriage but couldn't find the way to do it. The police officer didn't want to deal with the drama of a married woman with 4 kids. For her to say such horrible things with so little regard for my feelings made me feel even worse. We agreed to meet the following morning and attempt to reach some agreement on a dissolution that would be as easy on the kids as possible. 
The next day my wife showed up at my house wearing clothes that I had bought her that she knew I liked. I thought that she was dressed to kill just to try to torture me even further but I tried not to let it bother me or at least let her know that I noticed. I am sure I failed because she looked amazing and she could tell I noticed. 

We agreed to shared parenting, no child support or alimony, that I would split my pension and all the household debts 50/50. I agreed to take the house since we were upside down and she would move out and get an apartment. She also told me that I should expect an explanation of benefits from my health insurance company because she had decided to go back on birth control. This hurt very much, I told her that I also may decide to have my vasectomy reversed if I found a younger woman who wanted to have children. We ended the meeting and agreed to tell the kids in a few days after emotions had settled down a bit. 

Since I am a firefighter and work an odd schedule, we initially agreed to try to communicate when it came to the schedule for the younger two kids, but that quickly fell apart. Over the next few weeks whenever we saw one another, I would get hurt at the sight of her and she would make little comments about how great her new life was and how much fun she was having going out with new friends. I just hurt and I realized that I needed to take the advise of many of the people here on SI and begin to maintain NC. NC = no new pain, and for a while that worked. 

The DS-16 began to notice that there was something going on and I told WW not to say anything until we could tell all of the kids at the same time together. Little by little over the next few days the kids began to figure out that mom and dad were splitting up. DS-16 was very upset and began to think that it was his fault that his mom had had sex with his friends' dad. He told me that he wanted to kill the OM. I told him that it wasn't his fault, that we both loved him very much and that I would handle this. He began to suffer depression and was eventually hospitalized for suicidal ideation a few months later. Things were really getting off track and WW soon realized that she couldn't get an apartment or refinance her mini-van as easily as she thought she was going to be able to. She was finally able to find an apartment with DD-22 as her roommate and moved into her new apartment about a month later. Something I was very apprehensive about; I knew that my WW would have other men around my DD-22, and with the previous boundary issues, sexual problems were sure to come up. I warned my DD-22 not to move in with her mother, but DD-22 said she wanted to help her mother get through this. About a week later we sat all of the kids down and told them that mom and dad were getting divorced, WW said at first that it was "her fault" and I stopped her and told the kids that, no, it was both of our faults, but that we would never be married again. 

I have never in my life felt so hurt, alone, abandoned and unsure as I did immediately after WW left our home. Everything was quiet and the kids were unsure of how to act with mom being gone. Since I had stopped drinking and began to workout a lot more I quickly lost about 50 pounds. My WW noticed. 

From the end of July until the boys started back to school in August was surreal. The WW was staying at the MIL house and I was staying at our home. Because of my odd firefighter schedule, we tried at first for one of us to always be with the kids. She would come over and stay for the 24 hour period I was on duty and then leave as I got home. This never really worked because I would see her and act hurt and then she would say some smart remark and start an argument. I tried to start the 180 but it didn't seem to work. It was odd having her here doing the normal household stuff when we both knew that she wanted to be with the police officer. I started to do the household stuff that needed to get done but it was very hard and I would have emotional breakdowns over the stupidest things. I started crying at the gym, at walmart, even when I was mowing the grass because these were the things that we used to do together as a couple. I hurt so bad and it seemed like she didn't care. It was a very confusing and painful time. 
As I began to lose more and more weight, she began to notice and the Hysterical Bonding began again and I really tried to win her back sexually. I'm sure at the time she thought of it as nothing more than getting off, but I thought that we were making some progress towards reconciling. After a few weeks I started to go over to the MIL house when we were alone and continue to have sex with the WW and I told her that I loved her and wanted her back. She said that she loved me too, that she wanted to be a part of my life but that we needed to work on our own individual issues, begin IC and MC again, start dating and then reconnect. I agreed and we started to text more and more when we weren't around each other and I though we were making real progress. It was another lie. 

The power went out in the MIL's house and for a few days I allowed the WW to stay in the guest bedroom in our home. One night I couldn't sleep and I got up and noticed through the ajar guest bedroom door a small light on. I walked in and noticed that she was charging the secret cell phone. She awoke as I bent over to pick it up and wanted to know what I was doing and she quickly grabbed the phone. I asked her why she was charging the phone and she gave me some lame excuse that she was using the email account to get internet coupons. I told her this sounded like complete crap and asked her had she been in contact with the police officer. She said that she had not been in contact with him, that I was being unreasonable and controlling. I asked her to let me see the phone and read the text messages on it. She refused and said that she would never let me read the messages again and that I needed to trust her. She said that she had saved all the messages on the phone but that they made her sound weak, needy, and desperate. She said she was going to delete all of the messages on the phone once and for all and that she had not had any contact with the police officer. I told her that we were at an impasse then because I believed that she had been talking to the police officer and she needed to prove that she hadn't. She wouldn't budge and refused to give up the phone. She said that she had always been someone's daughter, someone's wife or someone's mother and this phone made her feel good; that if I didn't let her have this one thing in her life that it just proved I was controlling and didn't treat her like an equal. I was exhausted with this argument and just went to bed. I let her keep the phone. 

The next morning, she came to me again and began having sex. After we were done, she made a comment that it felt like all she was good for was sex and that I treated her exactly like the police officer did; using her as a sex object to ejaculate in and then send on her way. She began crying, I told her that I loved her, I wanted to be her man and husband, that I valued her and appreciated her and to never compare me to that POS again if she wanted to stay in my life. I never wanted this situation to happen and would have given anything to keep her. I asked her to please give me the phone back, to take the battery out or give me the sim card just to prove she was willing to work on our marriage and keep NC in place. She refused. She began crying harder and left our home. From that point on, things were never the same in our relationship. She clearly wanted to be with the police officer more than with me and I couldn't stand being her second choice any longer. 

A few days later she was able to find an apartment and began to move out of the MIL house and took most of the household items from our home that she wanted. A few days later we spoke on the phone and again went over everything that had happened, the EA and the PA, why it had happened and how we could fix things. Her resolve had solidified and she now was completely argumentative, hostile and angry. She again began defending what she had done and said that this was my fault, that she would never grovel, beg, or give up her individuality again. I decided to stop playing nice with her, I finally contacted a PI, called the police department internal affairs office to report the OM, called the OM's ex-wife and attempted to contact the OM's girlfriend to tell her that they were trying to set her up for a 3-way. I hoped to blow this thing apart and thought that maybe my WW would see that I was willing to fight for my family and marriage. This was not how she viewed my actions and my children began to suffer. DS-16 started to have more suicidal thoughts and his IC started to get more and more concerned. This whole situation was completely off the rails.

The next few weeks were pretty rough. We officially separated on August 20th and it was weird not having her around. I missed her voice and companionship so much it was killing me. I spoke to a friend and after talking to him decided that only I could decide what I was willing to put up with and under what circumstances I could forgive her, so I decided to attempt to talk to her and see if she was willing to try to reconcile. I must have seemed so pathetic and needy to her so in retrospect it was a huge miscalculation on my part. 
I called and asked if I could speak to her and she agreed and we spoke in person again for hours about our relationship and what she saw in the OM. Basically, everything about me was bad and everything that the OM did was perfect. He was confident, a great lover, funny, articulate and fun to be around. I was a serious but depressing drunk, always concerned with the bills and serious topics and could never just let go and live life. It was very hurtful to hear. She said that he would call her by her name when they had sex and she loved that; she could just be herself around him, she always had to be a wife or mom around me. Whenever we were out in public together, she said that when she said something that I didn't like I would roll my eyes or shoot her a disapproving look and that made her feel bad about herself. She said I made her feel stupid and the OM made her feel smart, they had long talks about music, films, and books and I never seemed interested in hearing her opinions. I didn't know I ever did those things or made her feel that way. It really hurt. She was clearly in the fog but wouldn't listen to anything I said. She said that she "loved me but wasn't in love with me" that things had changed and she clearly had "got something out of her relationship" with the police officer. She said that she would rather be his ***** than my wife, she would rather be treated like a piece of meat by him than like a princess by me. She also said that she knew that I was trying to contact his girlfriend to tell her about the PA and she said that she would appreciate it if I did that. She thought that if she could break them up that she would be able to get closer to the OM and try to form a stronger relationship with him. She told me that some of the sexual things that we had been doing during HB she had first done with the police officer, she was just re-enacting them. 

I told her that I had contacted the police officer's internal affairs division and she then became irate. I had never seen her so mad in the 24 years we had been together. She said that she would never forgive me. I was angry and said that i hadn't done anything that I needed forgiven for and that I was leaving. I left that day knowing that divorce was the only option. The next day I received the notice from the health insurance company that she had bought birth control. I began having a lot of dark thoughts and contemplated suicide but knew that wasn't right. I stared IC and went on AD meds. That helped a little and I started to heal.









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## angstire (Jun 4, 2013)

Well done post, I'm interested to read part 2. Sorry for the impact of your story on you and your kids.


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## ReGroup (Dec 6, 2012)

Welcome Brother, 

You made a lot of mistakes - but who doesn't? Don't be too hard on yourself.

You have come to the right place.

Your former MC is a moron. But many of them are.

WW is gone. Way gone. You need to 180 her ass for your sake. This will be incredibly hard - but it works.

Are you assisting her financially in any way?


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## somethingnewmaybe (May 12, 2013)

Dang I need to create a thread like this
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## sherri1997 (Jul 9, 2013)

Wow --- you gave her chance after chance and she still decided to stay in the fog. I just don't understand that fog at all. You keep strong for your kids, they will need you the most right now. Good luck to you and your kids .. I know this is a horrible time for you and I pray that things get easier for you!


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## angstire (Jun 4, 2013)

ReGroup said:


> Welcome Brother,
> 
> You made a lot of mistakes - but who doesn't? Don't be too hard on yourself.
> 
> ...


Sounds like the MC did a good job, aside from focusing on the alcohol exclusively in the beginning, of trying to focus WW on NC with posOM and just calling MC failed when she said she wouldn't go NC. He could have kept on with MC to collect copays and try and get her to change her song. Sometimes pulling the plug in a hopeless situation is the best you can do, IMO.


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## Ceegee (Sep 9, 2012)

sherri1997 said:


> Wow --- *you gave her chance after chance and she still decided to stay in the fog*. I just don't understand that fog at all. You keep strong for your kids, they will need you the most right now. Good luck to you and your kids .. I know this is a horrible time for you and I pray that things get easier for you!


Exactly why WW's should not be extended chances. It's enabling.

ffghtr67, wow, what a read. You know where you went wrong and admit to it. There is no shame in it as it is what most men would have done. 

That's why this thread is so important. Hopefully, newbies coming to TAM will read this and understand why they get the advice they do.

Thanks for sharing ff67.


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## Soveryalone (Jul 19, 2013)

wow , I can feel your pain jump off the computer screen. That was extremely difficult to read and I can only imagine the disgust you felt when you first read the text messages between her and him. I am so sorry you are on this site , it really sounds like you have been though hell and back. I like to think for me ( I wasn't married / no kids but was with my ex fiancé for 12 years) even though my Ex and I had grown so far apart and were essentially just strangers and roommate's , I like to believe I really did love her but maybe not. 

IT sounds like you gave her EVERY chance to change, and it sounds like this had less to do about you, and her attraction to you, it sounds like her identity was being a wife and mother , and she wanted something else, she wanted to be a different person , and she did that with the OM. I am so sorry and wish there was something I could say to make you feel better, I know all about being a man and crying in public, its so very tough. 

Really well written , you could write a novel. I know its easier said than done, but after reading this , its obvious this was all about her and her issues, her identity . Keep writing , keep reading posts here, they help. And what I did for my situation was write about and think about my former relationship in its entirety, from start to finish , ( so I didn't focus on the end of my 12 year relationship and my Ex s EA and 3 weeks after we split getting involved with the OM) anyways , I am so deeply sorry for your pain, but that was extremely well written and detailed.


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## Ceegee (Sep 9, 2012)

Ff67,

Whenever you're ready to share we're here for you. 

You doing alright?


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## mablenc (Feb 26, 2013)

Sorry to read your story, one thing that jumps out is how awful your MC was. I hope you can report her to the licensing board and/or at least give her bad reviews online. Had she done her job you could have progressed for good or bad at a faster pace.


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## Ceegee (Sep 9, 2012)

Mine was horrible too. 

You chose one without knowing much about them. 

You put you and your families life in their hands. 

It feels like you've blown your only shot at keeping your family together.


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## mablenc (Feb 26, 2013)

Ceegee said:


> Mine was horrible too.
> 
> You chose one without knowing much about them.
> 
> ...


My EAP at work hooked me up with an IC, she was great. I know I lucked out. It was a good thing too because I had never been to counseling before. Now I tell others that if by the 3rd session you don't feel warm and fuzzy on how it's going, look for another one.

I also would steer clear from the ones who have patients for 10 plus years. If its going at that pace somethings wrong there too.


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## smallsteps (Feb 23, 2013)

Sorry about all that has happened. You need to take care of yourself and your kids now. I for the life of me will never understand what these walk away spouses are thinking. Keep posting - although our stories vary we're all pretty much going through the same thing. Hang in there - take one day at a time.


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## gulfwarvet (Jan 7, 2013)

-This went on way too long-yeah you should have gotten away from her the inkling you new she had cheated on you and never looked back -but easier said then done I know.-Its so much better to stay away from an ex the less contact the better. I only text and its only when I absolutely have too otherwise nothing-nada.
Thanks for sharing and I hope writing all this out gives you some relief.


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## ohno (Jul 11, 2013)

ffghtr67 you are pretty incredible for everything you have gone through and your efforts to kep your family together. Really a great example and your kids are lucky yo have such a Dad.

I am wondering how the hell you didn't get a girlfriend at some point in all of this. I can understand being a one woman man, but not with a more than one man woman. 

Also I really think at a certain point in many womens lives they just lose their mind. Many of them cannot cope with the transition from young woman to mature woman. Ad in years of raising kids and whatever crazy sht goes on their head for those years and when the kids reach puberty it is game over. It is like a cycle where they are girls, become mothers, and then when their kids hit the age where the kids themselves can possibly reproduce, they want to stop being mothers and go back to being girls. I don't know what the fix is for that. It is really pathetically common.


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## gulfwarvet (Jan 7, 2013)

I believe the midlife crisis is all too real-its like bam one day they decided its all about me and enjoying life and they don't care who they hurt-its just nuts.


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## somethingnewmaybe (May 12, 2013)

Mine has been back out partying with friends, planning trips, etc. Maybe the idea of marriage was just something they thought they could "test" and then dump when the reality hits?


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## ffghtr67 (Jul 23, 2012)

The fall began to fly by and my routine had changed. It seemed like my wife didn't want to have much contact with the kids and I found that she began to leave the kids at home alone at my house on her weekends. We planned to meet the first week of October to fill out the dissolution paperwork and get the process started. I began NC with her and only communicated through email, whenever she would text I would either ignore it or give her a very short response and I was hoping to make her see the positive changes I was making in my life by not drinking, taking better care of myself and working out more. If she noticed, she never contacted me to try to reconcile. The October weekend came and went and she never called or showed up to begin the paperwork. I called her to ask if she was coming and she said that she was too sick to come over. It was obvious that she was hung over and I have recently learned that she began dating my next door neighbor at this time. 

DD told me that WW would often leave their apartment after midnight to meet up with the police officer at his apartment to have sex. I tried to get the kids to open up and talk to me but none of them ever would, I think all of them were in shock and just were dealing with our family falling apart in their own way. DS-19 refused to speak to his mother since she was also texting his ex-girlfriend for some unknown reason. DS-16 and DS-14 would often go to her apartment and spend time with her but often would call me and ask if they could come home. I believed that she was having other men around them but their was nothing I could do about it. I tried to text her to let her know that I disapproved of her having other men around the kids so soon but she said that she would do whatever she wanted to do, that it was "her life and her decisions" and that it was none of my concern what she did around the kids. 

I later learned that she also began to date and have sex with another volunteer fireman who lived several hours away and allowed him to take her and the boys to a local festival that our family had always attended. It was tough to deal with. I felt like and still feel like she had easily replaced me. This festival was the place where our first date happened 24 years earlier and it was hurtful for me to know that she took my boys there with some other man. The fall began to creep by and eventually we met to begin the paperwork. 

DS-16 went to his IC the last week of September 2012 and told his therapist that he wanted to hurt himself again. Earlier in the week, he and DS-19 had a fist fight in the kitchen of our house over the family cat of all things. The boys were clearly acting out as a result of all of the family issues we were having. This was completely out of the ordinary and violence had never happened before or been accepted in our home. I was at work when the fight occurred and had to rush home to find my WW and sons attempting to sort out what had happened. I didn't understand what WW was even doing in my home. It was utter chaos. 

Both sons were bloodied and had one had a black eye...it was obvious that my family had fallen apart and my WW was willing to let it die. She intentionally tried to stand between myself and DS-16 when we all were arguing about what had happened. It seemed that she was trying to antagonize me to the point of striking her, this was obvious. I had never realized that she was so conniving. I walked away from her as to not make the situation worse. I knew that she was trying to get me to hit her so I would be arrested. It was clear to me that she was gone and would never be my wife again. She eventually left and took DS-16 with her to her apartment for the evening after we again had a heated discussion about her emotional and physical affair. It was clear to me that WW was still in contact with the police officer by several of the comments she had made during the conversation. WW said that the police officer's girlfriend had found out about their PA and had been calling WW about it and the girlfriend had also told WW to stay away from the police officer. I think, but do not know for certain, that my WW began to show signs that she was stalking the police officer at this time and he had finally told her that their relationship had been purely sexual and he wanted to end it. The police officer had finally rejected my wife. He told WW to stop contacting him. This is what I've been told but don't know is true.


DS-19 stayed with me and never again spoke to his mother. To my knowledge, he hasn't spoke with her since that day. DS-19 told me that he had "lost all respect for his mother" and didn't want to have contact with her any more. WW had been texting DS-19's ex girlfriend with whom he had broken up with a few weeks earlier when the ex-girlfriend cheated on DS-19. WW had told DD-22 that "cheating was not a good enough reason to break up with someone." The ex-girlfriend had also been texting DS-19 telling him that she and WW had spoken about our family problems. WW told DS-19 that if he "wasn't a part of her life that it was his loss." I don't think she ever said a more hurtful thing to one of our children. DS-19 continued his freshman year in college and made the dean's list in spite of all the family turmoil his mother and I had created. 

DS-16 continued to have difficulty at school and we had allowed him to transfer to another local high school to get him out of the negative environment at the high school he had previously attended where the police officer's son went. I felt he needed a fresh start. My son wouldn't admit it but I believe that some of his friends were bullying him because his mother was physically attractive and they had seen or heard about the affair. In the past, other boys had made comments to all of the kids about how "hot their mom was" and I think those little comments began to wear on him. He also had pressure and anxiety from classmates offering him drugs and alcohol. DS-16 told me that he would only tell his IC why he was feeling suicidal again but it was difficult for me not to place the blame for his feelings on his mother. I tried to never bad mouth WW in front of my son but during the period at the Psychiatric Ward when the in-take paperwork was being filled out and he was out of the room, my WW and I had several heated arguments about why my son was suicidal. WW made hurtful comments to me like "don't you understand that sometimes I just like to f***" and that "I don't belong to anybody anymore." She continued to refuse to take any ownership for the damage her affair had caused, she simply said "this is something you can't blame on me." It was frustrating to me to see and hear her laugh and carry on with the emergency room nurse's like nothing was wrong when they filled out the psychiatric paperwork for my son. I admitted to the hospital staff that I was an alcoholic. WW casually said that she was a "wh***." DS-16 didn't hear this but I thought to myself how callused she had become. WW asked to borrow some money from me while we were at the hospital so she could get something to eat and I gave grudgingly gave her $5. She asked me at one point did I "hate her so much that I couldn't even be in the same room with her." I responded to her that I still loved her but that her behavior was causing me so much pain and she didn't seem to care. I asked her if she realized how much she was hurting me and she said "yes." 

She seemed to be completely disconnected from her family and didn't seem to care. Her life and finances were in disarray and she didn't seem to care. My WW's midlife crisis and sexual awakening had turned her into a serial cheater and a pathological liar and she just seemed unrecognizable to me anymore. 

DS-16 was hospitalized for a week and during this time it was obvious to me that WW had began dating other men. I have since have found out that WW had a sexual relationship with our next door neighbor and probably my DD-22's ex-boyfriend during this time. She also made hurtful comments to me about how physically attractive other men and women were to her. She wouldn't pick up her phone when DS-16 called her on several occasions from the hospital. It was like she had discovered this new life centered around sex and her old family was just in the way. 

WW had continued to use the cell phone on my family account, the secret cell phone had been shut off because she and DD-22 didn't have enough money to keep the bill paid current. I received the cell phone bill on my account and noticed that the bill was much higher than it was normally. Against my better judgment, I again pulled up her usage on the account and saw that she appeared to be making cell phone calls to several phone numbers to several areas across the state. It seemed to me that she had either began internet dating or at a very least began to see multiple people. This was another hurt I endured and I contacted the cell phone company and I immediately suspended her phone. I was not going to pay so she could contact other men any more. I also cut her off the auto insurance and my employer provided healthcare. I figured I would let her figure out how to pay her own bills on her own. 

She responded by finding someone to co-sign and refinance the car loan on the mini-van which she drove but we had initially bought together. I still don't know how she accomplished this whether a friend or boyfriend helped her do this, but the mini-van was no longer in my name. I didn't fight her on that refinancing, I figured if this was the life she wanted, I was not going to assist her and help her pay for this lifestyle any more. WW then had DD-22's current boyfriend add WW to his cell phone account so she could continue to contact other people whenever she wanted. 

Sometime in October, WW dropped off DS-14 at my home and asked if she could speak with me. I agreed and allowed her to enter the house and talk to me in the kitchen. She was crying. I asked her what was going on and she said that she had finally told the police officer that she wasn't going to ever see him again. I remained silent. She began to cry very hard and said that even though I didn't care or understand, that she did have "feelings" for the police officer. I think this was her way of trying to ask me if she could come back home and we could try to reconcile. I told her that she was about four months too late with the offer of NC with the police officer. She said that she understood and that she knew I would "never be able to trust her again because she couldn't trust herself." 

She continue by saying that she knew if the police officer called her "tomorrow or some other time that she would go to him because she loved how he made her feel." She asked me not to "mettle" in her new life, I decided from this point on to have no contact with her and have only spoke to her on four or five occasions since that day. I occasionally text her but keep the conversation short, only about the boys or parenting time and keep the communication to the point. This is very difficult and often hurts when I hear her voice and think about the sexual things she has done with other men. 

The first week of November 2012, the boys told me that their mother was again moving in with the MIL. Apparently, WW had been late or missed her rent payments and had been evicted from her new apartment. This was information that WW told all of the kids not to tell me. I think that she didn't want me to know exactly how bad her finances had become. I believe that at this point she had decided to move several hours away to a new boyfriend's home as soon as the divorce was finalized. This new boyfriend is a volunteer fireman and when I see WW wearing his fire department clothes it opens up more pain for me. I am trying to get over the pain of seeing her wearing another man's clothes. 

The holidays came and went and the boys and I began our new routines. I would make them lunch each morning and get them ready for school, they would spend time with me through the week and they would spend time with their mother when I was at work and on the weekends. We attempted to have shared parenting but it was very difficult because I would ignore or be very short with my answers to her when she called or texted about the kids. On several occasions, the boys would call me and ask if I could pick them up so they could sleep at home, they clearly didn't like being around their mother during these times. 

Thanksgiving and Christmas were very stressful and sad periods. I decided not to put up any of the old Christmas decorations on the house as to not stir up any bad memories. I think in retrospect this was a bad idea; I needed to at least put on a happy face so the boys would see that I was moving on but it was difficult to accomplish this. Christmas in the past had always been a happy time in our house and this year the holidays seemed to just cause more pain and stress. I was only able to get the boys a small gift card as money was extremely tight. I was trying to budget my money and be as liquid as I could while keeping the bills up to date but it was very hard to do this with the loss of WW's income. I tried to pick up as many hours as I could at my part time job to make up for the loss and it seemed like I was working almost every day. I think this was a real shock to me and the boys and they finally started to realize just how hard our new lives would be. 

The last and final time I spoke to my WW about anything substantial was the day before my birthday in 2012. DD-22 had decided to break up with her boyfriend. DD-22 also told me that her mother often would joke around about WW, DD-22 and the police officer having a 3-way sexual encounter. This was disturbing and painful to hear. I received a text from DD-22's ex-boyfriend which said that no one had spoke to DD-22 in several weeks. I had never even met this ex-boyfriend although DD-22 and WW were both living with him. I told myself that this was a good enough reason to make a call to the WW. I called WW and she told me that DD-22 had moved in with an another old boyfriend and that all of their finances were "very bad."

DD-22 didn't have enough money to pay her share of the apartment rent or bills. WW never asked for money but we spoke by phone for about 3 hours and rehashed many old arguments. WW told me that she had began to see someone new, that she now realized that the police officer was an a$$H*** who had ruined her life and this was a huge mistake that she would have to live with forever. She told me that she would be moving far away as soon as the divorce was final and that she would never reconcile with me as she was "committed" to this new boyfriend.

She said that she had learned a lot about herself sexually and that she was getting stronger every day. She said that all she had ever wanted was for someone to pay attention to her and now her life was lonely. She said all she did now was work and stay at home where she would drink wine and stay in touch with her new boyfriend. She said she wanted to go back to college and try to look for a new job close to her new boyfriend making more money. It was odd that she had to tell me that she was going to stay loyal to this new boyfriend when she had betrayed me and her family so easily. WW said all she wanted was for me to be happy and some day to forgive her. We talked in circles and argued again for several hours and it was obvious to me again that speaking to her only brought up more pain and hurt.

I told her that I would have loved her forever, that my kids, family and friends had all adored her. I told her that I didn't understand why she had done the things she had because our life together had been good, not perfect, but good. I told her that I didn't understand why she couldn't stop seeing the police officer when I first asked her and why after 24 years hadn't she even given me a glimmer of hope or shown any empathy for how I was feeling. WW responded that she "didn't know." She began to cry again and told me that she didn't care if I began to see other people and move on. After a few minutes of awkward silence, she wished me a Happy Birthday and Thanksgiving and we ended the call. I was completely devastated and had finally heard all I needed to hear. I never spoke to her again about her EA or PA with the police officer. The divorce would be finalized on April 15, 2013. 

So as I previously wrote, I never really spoke to WW about anything substantial regarding the breakup of our marriage again after we spoke around November 2012. That is going on 9 months now, and I can honestly say that I have thought about her almost every moment since we last spoke. I wanted to reconcile so badly, but I knew it would never happen. NC is difficult but is the new normal. I injured myself in a fire in late November and once she called to speak to DS-14 and asked if I was doing alright and I told her I was fine. During the phone call she called me "honey" like she always used to do and I felt the need to ask her to please never call me that again. She apologized and said that she had forgotten and it "just slipped" and said she never would do that again. That was just a painful reminder of what had happened and how far apart we had actually grown. 

DS-16 started IC and AD meds following his hospitalization and completed his follow up psychiatric visits and is no longer medicated or seen by a psychiatrist, although he still goes to IC twice a month. He started at a new high school following a failed attempt at home schooling which was a bad idea. It was impossible for either myself or his mother to adequately monitor his course work since we weren't communicating. I feel horrible about this lack of communication when it comes to the children but it is a choice I have made to save my sanity. WW takes every opportunity to wear her new boyfriends' firefighter clothes in front of me and this absolutely destroys my feelings and emotions. I have balanced the lack of contact with my ex-wife against the fact that both of my younger sons are old enough to understand that Mom cheated on Dad and they should be able to tell us where they want to live and go to school. I have asked them several times to let me know if there was anything I could do to make the transition into our new lives easier and neither of them have really said much. I am not positive if this is the best way to handle the situation but it is what I have decided to do until I am able to heal. This seems selfish and I honestly can say that I am working on it. 

It really hurts me to know that WW is seeing other men, I can't explain why. I wish I could just turn those jealousys off and I am hoping to one day be able to, I know I am not there yet. I am waiting for time to help heal this wound. When I think about my ex-wife I try to refocus on doing the 180, improving my life and finding happiness, that is all I can do for right now. 

The dissolution negotiations went pretty smoothly, all things considered. Our dissolution was final less than 8 months from the time we separated, a time which seems pretty quick when I read other posts. 

We ended up agreeing to shared parenting, I have the boys half of the month, she has them the other half. I am the residential parent for DS-14 and she is the residential parent for DS-16. Since my income was greater than hers, we agreed to a small amount of child support until DS-14 graduates high school in four years and then CS ends. No alimony will be paid. My attorney said that the child support was much less than others in my position would have expected to pay. She also was given a small amount of my pension, which she will receive when I retire 20 years from now; I agreed to pay 75% of our household debt. I get the house in return, she will file a quit claim for her share of the equity in home we shared together. I hope to refinance the home soon, although this may be harder than it sounds in the current market. I am still working on the refinance part of the agreement. 

Before I went to bed on the night following our dissolution, I felt the need to text her and tell her that I loved and missed her. I also said that I would think about her, where she was and what she was doing everyday for the rest of my life. I also said that I hoped that she would find whatever it was that she was looking for that I was not able to give her during our time together and ended the message with a goodbye. A few minutes later, I received a return text from her in which she wrote that she was sorry for the pain she had caused me and DS-19, that this whole situation had been a "huge" mistake on her part which she would have to live with for the rest of her life. She also said that she had tried to contact DS-19 to try to talk to him and he had refused to return her calls or texts. She said that she just wanted me to be happy and to some day forgive her for what she had done. She said that the pain she had caused us "broke her heart" and that there never would be a goodbye for us because we had four children to watch grow up. I noticed that she didn't say that she loved me or missed me. I haven't spoken to her since this last message. 

About a month ago I began to notice that my next door neighbor was acting distant. I had always noticed during my marriage that my wife took every opportunity to speak to this particular neighbor when ever he was out in his yard. I noticed that he seemed to be avoiding speaking to me and this just seemed odd. DD-22 came over for a visit one evening and we began to speak about her mother and all of the events which had happened and I mentioned his odd behavior. DD-22 then let me know that her mother and the neighbor had dated several times during our separation and probably had sex. This simply hurt and I let my emotions and feelings get the better of me. After DD-22 left, I texted my ex-wife and asked her was it true that she and the next door neighbor had a sexual relationship and thankfully, my ex-wife never responded to my question. I didn't let my ex-wife know what DD-22 had told me about the neighbor or the facts that DD-22 thought my ex-wife had a sexual relationship with DD-22's ex-boyfriend or had joked about DD-22 and WW doing a 3-way with the police officer last fall. 

The next day I noticed the neighbor out in his yard and I confronted him about what I had learned. He said that he had in fact dated my wife while we where separated and that he realized that she was "ultra-sexual" by the way she spoke, carried herself and constantly tried to touch him, but denied ever having a sexual relationship with WW. He seemed to be frightened by my questions and on several occasions I seemed to catch him lying and disputing events which I knew had happened, or leaving out certain important details. I could tell the neighbor was uncomfortable with my questioning him and I told him that I suspected that he and my ex-wife did in fact have a sexual relationship. I told him that in the end, it was none of my business but that my family had been devastated by my ex-wife's actions and behaviors and that I would protect my children. I further told him that I didn't appreciate what my ex-wife was doing by dating him. The neighbor said that he didn't want to get involved in our family problems, that my ex-wife had pursued him and that he hadn't been in contact with my WW since those few dates they had together in the fall of 2012. I suppose this is the last painful event which I will have to overcome to finally begin to withdraw my feelings and emotions from my ex-wife. I don't know how to describe her except to say that she was a bad wife, a bad mother and a selfish person who used her family as an ends to fulfill her perverted sexual desires. As soon as I accept this, I think I will be able to move on. 

Finally, my ex-wife emailed me a few weeks ago and told me that she will be moving at the end of the month. By moving against the court agreement, she loses the child support and I will become the residential parent for the kids. My boys have said that she is moving to be closer to her current boyfriend. I hope that this distance between my ex-wife and myself allows the healing to finally begin, since I won't have to see her as often as I may now. I wonder if I can handle the pain of seeing her with her new boyfriend some day.

I have caught myself snooping on her Facebook and doing internet searches on her name over the last few weeks. I know this is unhealthy and I am trying to stop doing this. I just can't seem to get her out of my mind. I have debated posting her and the police officer on the website Cheaterville, I am not sure if I want to take this move yet or not. 

Financially, I am in a real bind currently and I have begun to look for additional work and hours at my part-time job to make ends meet. I hope that in the near future I can adjust my budget to live within my means while still providing a home for my kids. This seems to be a major undertaking at this point and I am trying to reconcile dating new people with my current lack of money. I hope this is a short term problem, but I know I am not ready yet to get serious with anyone new. 

Sometimes I wonder how it was so easy for my ex-wife to find a new boyfriend and replace me so quickly. It may be a case of any port in a storm, but it feels like she is happy to live without me. I wonder if the EA and PA was worth it to her, if I was such a horrible husband that this is what she had to do to end our marriage. 

Against my better judgment, I have began to see other women and unfortunately, I know that I still am in love with my ex-wife and am hung up her and wanting to re-live the events she has put me through. I find myself talking to my new girlfriend about my ex-wife and the events of my break-up and I am trying to let go of the past and move on. I hope to one day be happy and that is what I am trying to work on each day.


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## somethingnewmaybe (May 12, 2013)

I feel like women like that are the reason men never marry again. All of that garbage is on her. Amazing how selfishly people create "family" to suit their own wants and walk away to fulfill more. Such an empty, insecure and regretful existence. 

Sorry you've exoerienced such drama. Sounds like you love your family enough to put them in front of your wants.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Soveryalone (Jul 19, 2013)

thanks for sharing, so deeply sorry for your pain , I don't know if you ever really stop loving someone, no matter how much pain they inflict. I think clichés are often overused on this site however the ole Time heals cliché seems to be very accurate in your case. My god did your Ex wife do a number on you and your family, and I admire you greatly for how you have handled this from the jump. You are a true gentleman and who knows , maybe one of these woman you are dating might be the "one", and you never know , even though right now you still have strong feelings and feel love for your Ex wife, maybe in time a new woman will come along and you wont even remember your ex wife's name. stay strong , best wishes to you and yours !


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## manticore (Sep 3, 2013)

I just read you story, I am sorry for your pain, I know that telling you things like "with time you will heal" sounds like cliche but is the true, I hope you allow yourself to connect with new people, daiting is a good step maybe it does not feel like it right now but try to allow yourself to share feelings and connections with other women.

you already did all the major steps towards recovery, and your decission of NC will help you to detach with time, you are a good man and father, you deserves happiness, try to enjoy life, not just dating, go out with friends, social gatherings, even with your sons, look a hobbie that all of you can share together.

You wrote that you reported the OM to the police departament, did the PD did something about it? I thought that professions like policemen and bureaucrats were really affected at work with this kind of infidelity situations.

Also, I don't know if you had have the opportunity to read "workindad" and "Ing" stories, they were also deeply in love with their wives and their wives did similar things like yours, maybe Reading thei stories will help you to see that as long as you want there is light at the end of the tunnel.


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## helolover (Aug 24, 2012)

Ffghtr67, your wife has low self esteem and is pretty much an attention wh*re. She is high school drama. She needs external validation from men. Pathetic. 

You're still hung up on your wife. I get this. I found a lot of good insights about infidelity and the sparkly unicorn of reconciliation at Chump Lady — Leave A Cheater, Gain A Life. She has some interesting perspectives. I suggest you browse some of the readings. I read a lot of her stuff in the early days and it helped me realize why people cheat. You're wife is the standard cheater with the standard scripts. They pretty much do and say the same stuff. Your wife is a liar. Suspect EVERYTHING she says or does. All of these OMs associated with your wife have no characters and are liars too. Treat them accordingly. 

Also, I understand your situation exacly. I've been walked away from out of the blue. I had the wife who lost weight and tried to relive her 20s while in her mid to late 40s. Same BS. It was easy for her to walk away and destroy her family and all the family relatinoships because she was "unappy for a long time." Everything is about her as your wife is also demonstrating to you. You're not alone. 

I caution you about dating others right now. It feels good to do so as it validates you aren't a total reject and that women still find you attractive. I get this. From reading what you put out, I don't think you're ready to date. If it is a date situation, women don't want to hear about your wife or your failed relationship. If you are seeking counsel for someone to listen to you, that's one thing. I recommend IC so you can get yourself on 2 feet again.

I also recommend leaving sites like cheaterville.com alone. Although it feels good to publicly out someone in public, what do you gain? I would resist the urge. I recommend this book to you: The 10 Stupidest Mistakes Men make in divorce. Watch what you put online. It WILL come back to haunt you. I recommend you take the high ground always. You need to be (appear) calm, professional, and in control of your emotions. You are a man and need to have self dignity and conduct yourself accordingly throughout this. You will sleep better at night if you do.

Here to support as you go THROUGH this. There are no shortcuts or quick fixes with new relationships, substances, or otherwise. The pain and discomfort associated with this is very cleansing. You'll come out a different person. I promise. It's clean living, my friend. Your best revenge to your tart (ex) wife is good living. 

HL


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