Should I sacrifice myself for my children?

[No Limit]

Sorry but, as you already know now, her remorse isn't true. I don't see how counseling does any good. Living like roommates seems almost inevitable.

[Buckeye2]

OP, I’m the guy that said I would slap some sense into you if you were my son. I thought you were a fool but I was wrong. You may not know what to do but you have done a good job analyzing the wicked hand you were dealt.

 

You are not ready to divorce, so my suggestion is treat it as business.

 

The above is the only way I could remain with your wife. Look at it this way. If your wife were to die you would need a nanny for your kids. Your wife would be the perfect nanny and you can have sex with her.

 

You're her meal ticket and I very much think she lacks the foundation to build a marriage upon. So be it. You have to work with the hand you’ve been dealt.

 

You can’t nice your way into making someone love you as you’ve discovered. Keep your emotional distance and don’t let her break your heart again. The two of you are in the business of raising your kids. You can divorce her if you want when the kids are older.

 

On the bright side it sounds as if she treating you better than she ever did before D day.

 

Frankly, I don't believe they met in person. I had sent his wife an email, telling her that they had slept together. And he later wrote her a text saying, "Why did you tell your husband we did it? What was that about?"

 

This doesn’t mean much and all. The OM knew that you were reading his texts. He probably told his wife that you and your wife were crazy and that he never had sex with your wife. He might have sent that text in front of his wife for her benefit and hoped that you would read it. Did you include some of their texts in the email to OM’s wife?

 

And during a conversation with her dad, who is a pastor, he basically asked me: it takes two people to destroy a marriage; are you going to be ok with your children living in poverty?

 

Your father-in-law is a real self-serving sanctimonious piece of work. If you didn’t support her he might be asked to help pay her medical bills. He has a lot in common with his daughter.

[JohnBol]

Thank you all again for taking your time to read my post and respond. All are good advices. I think I have come to a standstill. I feel like I know ENOUGH, and yet I am waiting for my brain to make the final decision. Right now, I am in happy denial. We have been having good sex, and she seems genuinely remorseful. But I am not an idiot. Whatever it was that she saw missing in me, and because of which she strayed, is still there. I do believe her she wants to stay together and improve our marriage (and there had been issues with it before this, but nothing as serious as she is trying to make it out to be). I do feel like it is our chance to start again. But then I know she is the kind of person she is: capable of long-term betrayal and living a double-life, e.g., talking to both men on a daily basis about their days, etc. And capable of having phone sex with another man while our 3 month old baby was asleep in our house. Capable of sexting another man from our bedroom while I was home elsewhere. Very hard to forgive. But very hard to walk away as well, given our children AND given how MY life would be upended because of a divorce. So, I am gonna sit tight and see what happens next. This hysterical bonding thing will cool down soon. In the meantime, I hate the fact that, as a man, I am so easy manipulated. Throw at me some sex, and I come around like a lamb. All the anger melts away, and I believe what I want to believe. But another part of my brain looks on, and mutters to itself: over my dead body! So I am gonna wait myself out, I guess.

 

Thanks again for your time and advice.

 

@Buckeye2, I wish there was a way you could slap me out of denial. Like many other posters, you make so much sense after I come back here after listening to my wife ... It is hard to forget/forgive the fact that your wife disrespected you so much, and betrayed you with your worst possible enemy. After all, to any man, the Other Man is the worst possible enemy. My wife had confessed to the marriage counselor when asked what was this other man to you ... he was a friend I could talk to. So it is not just sexting and phone sex. For over 9 months (at least, per her own confessed timeline), there was this other man in my life that I never knew anything about. They would discuss me and our marriage. They never said "love" you etc. Just fuc$ing around, using the phone I was paying for by working long hours, etc ... I am confident that I will come around. The denial is a phase too. No cheater should ever be forgiven. Life is just too short to compromise on the most core things, and loyalty is such a core thing to me. I will get the sex, and wait a bit. I feel too bad for my kids. But the marriage is too broken already for any kids to live in it. Any marriage where the mother googles driving direction to another man's bed (regardless of whether she does it or not), and where they discuss using condoms and what positions they will use, and what alibi (spa) she would use as her cover story ... that marriage is broken beyond repair. I can pay to fix it, using my dignity and happiness as the cost. But, since all my prior deeds had not been enough to stop her from the path of infidelity, the new sacrifices will do no good either. Frankly, even if they did, even if she was an angel for the rest of her life ... To me, it does not matter. If someone stabs me in the back once, I simply will NEVER trust them the same again.

 

Sorry for ranting

[No Limit]

A question; why can't you support your kids alone if you ever get a divorce? Can't they live with you? Or turn visitation down to "come whenever you feel like it, I'm your father after all"?

[A.Moscote]

I guess your last paragraph says it all about the direction that you should work on to. It sounds very much hopeless, especially in the way you described the nature of the relationships here, between you and her, and between her and the OM.

 

Perhaps if you convey to her as you have to us like this, she will understands what she has done, and accept it too that this is the beginning of the end. Staying would mean limiting each other, limiting her as you implied. Better to end it together, respectfully and mutually. Hopefully the future will be more stable and promising if you do so.

 

However, if in case you want the opposite, and you know you can endure it all, then keep on being patient, there are still ways to work on it. See if both of you can firmly says yes to 100% commitment and 100% openness (important because you need to discuss with her everything that you have with us). Many here have made it through with their WS. Just take your time to consider if that is what you really want.

 

Be strong JohnBol, take care.

[flowergirl14]

You know im in the same situation. My husband cheated at least once. I feel in my heart something is up again. Ironically because hes too nice. Hes doing all the things hes supposed to be doing and then some, which is unlike him. I am happy that all is "well" on the surface. Honestly the kids are happy. We are not fighting. However, Inside im dying. I feeling like hes the biggest assh*le. To cheat once ok but if hes doing it again..wtf? Im trying to decide stay and enjoy the good times with my kids. Or leave and hope i can survive as a single parent?

[Btrade]

Your FIL is the master manipulator.

 

I have a friend whose wife cheated in NC where they do care. Wife gets zero alimony. She went from 5 bed mcmansion to a two bed townhouse. Besides cs, he subsidizes that townhouse to the tune of 400 a month. Because he loves his little girl and is making sure she goes to the right school.

 

 

The point is, you can make arrangements.

[merrmeade]

Thanks for the update John. I have to admit it was very painful and heartbreaking to read but you write very well and are very good at expressing yourself. That is a skill that may come in very handy during counseling.

 

I have some responses in bold to some of your statements below.

there is no statute of limitations on divorce after adultery. There are people that make a good faith effort to reconcile that realize they can't do it months and even years down the road...

 

I agree that JB writes very well and captures, in particular, the contradictory impulses clouding every decision.

 

I have a question about something you said, oldshirt. I hope it is not thread-jacking but think it could be relevant and helpful for the OP.

 

That is, you said, "There are people that make a good faith effort to reconcile but realize they can't do it ... even years down the road..." Would you mind providing more detail about, elaborating with specifics about people who you know or have read about that tried to reconcile but ended up splitting up years after d-day and attempts at reconciliation?

[oldshirt]

 

I have a question about something you said, oldshirt. I hope it is not thread-jacking but think it could be relevant and helpful for the OP.

 

That is, you said, "There are people that make a good faith effort to reconcile but realize they can't do it ... even years down the road..." Would you mind providing more detail about, elaborating with specifics about people who you know or have read about that tried to reconcile but ended up splitting up years after d-day and attempts at reconciliation?

 

Yeah pretty much every single person I know that has had a divorce.

 

What I would trouble citing an example of is someone that woke up one day wanting a divorce and went out and got one that day.

 

I'm sure they are out there but I don't know a single person in real life that found out their spouse was cheating and managed to get an appointment with the lawyer that afternoon and served them with papers at dinner that evening.

 

Pretty much everyone I know that has divorced had some form of attempted reconciliation or counseling etc for some period of time before deciding to throw in the towel.

Edited October 10, 2014 by oldshirt

[merrmeade]

• Or she is genuinely remorseful about her lapse and wants to fall back in love with you.

I liked all that you said, AYJ, but was wondering about this statement — wants to fall back in love with you.

 

So, just when you think your cynicism cannot get any darker or your resilience, more fragile, you realize there's a whole new world out there: the next stage. For me, as I move through this unsought, undeserved life experience, gaining insight and the unenviable qualification to advise those following behind, I discover new challenges I can discuss with no one and realize I'll probably always be ahead of my WS, hoping in vain he'll learn to manage his own emotional baggage before we die or divorce. Infidelity grad school with Couples 101 or maybe Remedial Prep School for Couples. So far I've earned no degrees and no one's making merit badges last I heard. If there were, I'd probably be entered for something like BS Most Likely to Secede from Union / Most Gullible BS to B.S. / Warning: Vitriolic Cynic on the Vent

 

Now that could be a promising and therapeutic thread...

 

Anyway, when you said this, AYJ, I went - oh, **** - s/he's right! He freaking has to "fall back in love" with me. But, oh crap. Do I really have to help with that, too??? It's almost too much when I think about it. Dumb **** doesn't even know to want the rewards of mature love. So, sorry - out of my reverie and back to your comment and my question - is this a thing that's part of reconciliation? Did you just say it as a reflection to the OP's thread and circumstances? What is this 'falling back in love'? You mean, when they realize they're sorry and screwed up, they're not still 'in love'?

 

(Is this thread-jacking? If so, please give me a heads up and I'll desist and jack up somewhere else. Thanks.)

[JohnBol]

There is a lot of good advice here. I really appreciate everyone's advice. I know very well in my heart that I do not want to forgive or forget, or move on, not after I have become aware that my wife sought another man for sexual satisfaction. She says she didn't meet in person, but only used texting and phone for over 9 months period, and talked on the phone frequently about each other's day when he was driving home from work. 30-45 mins type of calls. And I am pretty certain that PIV happened too. And I am not judging betrayed spouses who have overcome all that, or trying to. I applaud you for your bravery and strength. I myself cannot envision myself going through a daily hell of trying to overcome the worst betrayal a spouse can experience. I plan to divorce. We have already met a mediation lawyer. And it seems like a very good path to divorce. My wife, if I can call her that, still clings on the illusion that the marriage can be saved and wants to "fight for us." I frankly don't blame her. I'd say about 40% of time since my DDay in mid-Aug I have been the "nice" version of myself. I have bought her presents, asked for forgiveness for being to rough on her emotionally by not letting go of the affair after she had apologized for it, I have told her I love her, in cheesy words, that I want to spend the rest of my life with her, etc.

 

 

But then ... and it is such a strange feeling, the next day I feel the complete opposite. I realize how this very person has hurt me, how she didn't care about me, how she mastur$bated to the images and voice of another man on my home phone, how she googled driving directions to his hotel ... Really? Am I the type of guy who will accept being a second choice to his wife, who badly needs a good health insurance like mine to cover her multiple conditions, and who needs a partner to raise the kids under the same roof, and who would continue to allow her not to work and take care of kids? While I was working hard and late in the office, and while she had been a stay-home mom for over 6 years now ... she was sitting home and writing to another man how she was thinking of her and his coc$k? No, I cannot and will not accept that.

 

 

But it is shameful how I am like a stupid pendulum. But I know why I would say those nice things to her about love etc ... It is a defense mechanism, part of flinching when staring at the aftermath and the things to come as a result of a divorce. Splitting and packing our stuff, moving into a tiny ****ty apartment, juggling kids, dealing with her having a man in the house where my children sleep when she has them, ... the horror of that makes me flinch and write her those idiotic notes. But the man in me will not let this go. I will not be anybody second choice or provider. If she does not sign the mediation agreement, I will go with my own lawyer.