# Need input on unusual separation



## tam8145 (Apr 6, 2011)

Hi all, I've been reading the TAM forums for about 2 years. My wife and I have had issues and I have found these forums helpful for me. I have never registered to post, but now I need some insight and support from the forum. 

We've been married 14 years. I'm 38, she is 37. We have 2 kids: daughter is 9, son is 5.

On Friday, April 1 (no April Fools joke), I confronted my wife about a suspected affair. I had noticed she was hiding emails and calls for the previous 2 weeks. She confirmed. She said she no longer loves me. She said she checked-out months ago and then found OM. Wife said she wants to separate and stay in the same house for the kids while she decides what she will do. 

They met at a work conference 8 weeks prior and have been talking ever since. She says nothing physical, but she would like to. He understands her like I never did. 

Here's the unusual part: It's a long-distance EA. He lives 500 miles away. He has no intentions of moving to our town and my wife has no intentions to move to his town. OM is never married (39) and has a girlfriend who knows nothing. Wife says there are no plan to meet, but she asked me to let her see him if plans are made.

Wife says she needs to figure this out before she will reconsider me. I have told her I want to stay married and will make all changes to save the marriage. She refuses to end relationship with OM. She refuses counseling. She says she may give me another chance, but not now. No timetable has been set.

Here is what my wife wants: No divorce, yet. She wants to be alone and develop relationship with OM. Due to kids and money, she wants us to live in separate rooms of the house while she takes time. She wants us to "stay together for the kids." She has no intentions to date anyone else; she wants/loves OM. She says I have more freedom. Again, there is no time frame, but it could be years... She has told NONE of her friends about EA and wants us to appear OK. My confrontation was not a part of her plan. 

It's only been 5 days. I'm a wreck and very sad, heartbroken. 

To be honest, I pushed my wife away with bitterness and pressures for sex. Over time, she started to resent me. She says I took her for granted and did not prioritize her needs. Does that justify EA? She thinks so. I want another chance to be a better man for my wife and family. I am willing to surrender all my love to her and save our family. 

I have different thoughts of what I'm going to do every few hours. I need to stay close for the kids, but I'm not sure I can be separated in the same house for much longer (she wants to.)

Any ideas, thoughts, support, actions will be very appreciated and help me figure out what I'm going to do.

Thanks, 
8145


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## Runs like Dog (Feb 25, 2011)

To me it sounds nuts. It sounds like an informal open marriage.


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## Jellybeans (Mar 8, 2011)

tam8145 said:


> *She refuses to end relationship with OM. *She refuses counseling. She says she may give me another chance, but not now.


The bolded part is all you need to know. 

1. Tell her you will NOT live in an open marriage and if she can't live with that, file for separation/divorce.
2. Do not leave your home. She wants to have a boyfriend, she can leave.
3. Do not cover up the affair for her. If she doesn't axe it, tell everyone about her afffair.
4. Find out who the girlfriend is STAT and tell her TODAY that her boyfriend is having an affair with your wife. For all you know dude could be married.

This is Hammer Time. What do you do know could make/break your marriage.

The one thing that remains is this: she has NO respect for you if she thinks it's ok for her to have a sidepiece while you are there for her every day. Unless you stand up for youself, she will continue to walk all overyou. Find HurtinginTN's thread in Coping. He's about 30 pages in and it's "more of the same" since he hasn't enforced a hard boundary and stuck to it. You can either wait for her to wlak all over you and lose all your dignity as a man or stand up for yourself.

Good luck.


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## Jellybeans (Mar 8, 2011)

Runs like Dog said:


> To me it sounds nuts. It sounds like an informal open marriage.


Pretty much.


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## LonelyNLost (Dec 11, 2010)

Go visit the infidelity forum. Great thread titled "Gee Wiz, I want to have an affair" or something like that. She wants to see if the grass is greener while you stick around. Time for an ultimatum. She's lost all respect for you and you have to regain it. NO matter how scary. At least she admitted it. Mine won't.


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## Halien (Feb 20, 2011)

I really don't think you want the opinions of those who are not in your current state of desperation. I'm sorry that you are going through this.

My opinion?

At least if it doesn't work out with the other man, she'll have the best of both worlds until she meets the next Mr. Right. Why not? You will be giving her the green light, and rolling out the self respect for her to walk on. Sounds like a long, lonely and painful road ahead of you, and its hard to imagine that relenting so utterly would ever present her with the positive side of you. Her choice is then between a man who is willing to stand up to her husband to get her, and the husband who will wait and hope it doesn't work out with the other guy.


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## akcroy (Dec 23, 2010)

Man up.

You may have your share of mistakes, but she's sucking advantage out of the word 'advantage' right now.

Get out of there as fast as you can.


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## Affaircare (Jan 11, 2010)

No her proposal is ridiculous. 

If I were in your shoes I would tell her that her options are:

1) Honor her vows to you and your family...and end it with the OM immediately and willingly offer transparency with her email, cellphone etc. 

or 

2) Continue to disregard her obligations to you and the family, and pack her bags tonight while you call her mom to come get her. Call #2 will be to OM's GF to inform her of his lack of commitment so she (the GF) can decide if she wants to stay with someone who would be unfaithful to her. 

She does not have the option of staying in the marital home, having you pay for her internet, groceries, clothing, bills, and phone while another man romances her. If she refuses to honor her vow, then she's out and "loverboy" can get her an apartment and pay her bills!!

Her "suggestion" is ... well it is UNBELIEVABLE!!


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## the guy (Aug 3, 2010)

Even if you can't get her out of the marital home get her out of the marital bed. 

Never leave your home ever! She leaves

Get some hard proof in black and white of the affair.

As soon as she leave to "visit" the OM pack her stuff up and tell everyone she abandoned you for OM.

Do not tell her any of this and start preparing. Again quitely gather some evidence and store it for the big event when she decides to visit this guy. Most likely she will make it sound like a girls weekend or a long vist to relitives.
If you have the evidence then you can assume she's with him and pack her stuff up when shes gone. Its just a matter of time ...especially the way you are handling.

I know you love her and you want to fight this thing, and you are wondering if this kind of thing will push her away....well she is already gone so get proof and make her affair as inconvienent as possaible. Remember she has pushed away already.

She my not hate you now but she also hase no respect for you. You start playing hard ball and she will hate you but she will at least respect you.

Having proof will not help you in court , but it will prevent her from making you look like the bad guy when you expose her affair.

In my experience if you do nothing she will have her thing and it will get old. Then she will have another and another. Years will go by and she will have been with mulitable guys and you will have this huge resentment for her.

Her affair may wear off and things will get better then it will get bad then it will get better and on and on. For me maybe it would have been better off if my W just fell in love with 1st OM...14 years ago and moved on, but she didn't and I let her carry on for years. 

This kind of behavior is so unhealth for both of you...believe me put your foot down and stand up and do not tolorate her behavior. 

You can't control her but you can control what you will tolorate. You can set some boundries that will prevent you from years of pain. You can find happiness and move on *now*. Granted she can come a long with you and on your terms.

You diserve to be happy and the pain she has inflicted on you weakens as time passes with out her, but pain will continue if you let your self sit by will your W behaves like she is.

Believe me you will get tired of this sooner or later. It will just hurt more in the long run if you don't deal with the pain of pushing her away now. Why torment your self for years like I did when you have the oppertunity to make a change for your self *now*. Its her choice to come a long with you or not.

I truely believe if you push back now and stand up it will save you much lees pain then doing it later on in life when you've finally had enough....years down the road.

Acting now will at least get you the respect you diserve letting her carry on will only weaken her respect for you and deminish her self worth. Kind of like "if my husband wont fight for me then screw it, I'll sleep around...he doesn't care" 

She may not think about it now but when this affair ends on her terms and you are still with her she will move on to the next affair with this exact thought process. 

You need to deside... sit by and share like I did or stand up for your self and let her move on. It sound simply but either way its painful. For me I found solice in my career as I buried my head in the sand. My wife had 20 OM in 13 years. This was so unhealth for both of us. That is why I aways suggest that the LS take a stand now and take the risk of lossing the spouse then sitting by and do nothing and tolorate the DS behavior.


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## tam8145 (Apr 6, 2011)

Thanks so much for all the input. I appreciate the time y'all took to offer advice. I also gathered advice from some close friends yesterday. Then late last night I talked to my wife. 

I told her I will divorce. She says that's what she wants too. She was clear there would be no reconciliation and she would rather be lonely than be with me. Against advice, I agreed to let her stay in the house with the kids and I'm looking for an apartment. We made plans to keep the kids at the house permanently and we switch out. She agreed to vacate on the weekends while I stay at the house. 

Another oddity - I work from home. We worked out an arrangement for me to continue to work from the house while she is away at her job. 

We agreed to try for an uncontested online divorce. She agreed to not seek a lawyer, as did I. We cannot afford divorce anyway. 

In the end, I called her bluff and she stood by her plan. I knew I couldn't continue on with her request to "stay together for the kids." Today has been a better day. I'm somewhat relieved it's over and she says she is happy now. I still love her, but I need to move on.

More later...


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## Jellybeans (Mar 8, 2011)

tam8145 said:


> Against advice, I agreed to let her stay in the house with the kids and I'm looking for an apartment.


That's not in writing yet or notarized by an attorney so you don't have to stick with that. Stay in your home. SHE is the one having an affair, you dig? So she should leave. You work from home so why in the world would you uproot your entire life just to make things easy for her??? Expose the affair and tell her you're done.


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## tam8145 (Apr 6, 2011)

Jellybeans, Thanks for the help. At this time, I have decided to give it some time in the house. I don't want to make any irrational decisions.
I'll post more as the details become available.


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## tam8145 (Apr 6, 2011)

Update: Very tense weekend "at the house." Last night, my wife replied to a text message from me saying she wants to divorce and move on. I just got divorced by text message.
I have an appointment with a lawyer today to help me figure out my best move. My wife refuses to leave the house. I want to see if I have a chance to keep the kids and house. 
I don't think I should be forced to leave due to her change in lifestyle. I'll see what the lawyer says.


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## Jellybeans (Mar 8, 2011)

I keep meaning to post this in this thread but always forget...about your thread title... the "unusual separation"--it's actually not unusual at all and very typical... one spouse has an affair and wants out. It's the oldest story in the book (as seen all over this board).

No, you didn't get "divorced by text." She is telling you she wants a divorce. The divorce is the formality, not her verbalizing she is done (or rather, messaging in SMS format). 

Yes, go see your attorney and find out what you can.

DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT leave your home. Ok? AT ALL.


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