Almost 6 years and now this...

[flwife]

Hi... I'm new here and I need some guidance. I've read tons of 'save your marriage' stuff, but so far, it seems it wasn't in me to do what needed to be done.

 

Let me start with saying that my husband and I will have been married for 6 years come this April. And it was a hard, hard, hard 6 years for us. I had two kids from a previous relationship, but they were little when he came into our lives. He is the only Dad they've ever known. They call him Dad. He always said "Those are my sons. They're my kids."

 

When we very first met, I told him that I was prone to bouts of situational depression- when there is too much chaos in my life, I feel like I have no control over my own life and I get clinically depressed. The warning signs, that I told him, were that I would withdraw, not leave the house, not take showers and get dressed for days on end, and get snappy with people and lash out at them. I told him that if these things started to happen, all he had to do was call my doctor and tell my doctor what was going on with me, make an appointment and take me there and the doctor would handle it from there... he was in the medical field and said he would accept that watch.

 

Shortly after we got married, we had moved 2 hours from my hometown to be closer to his work. New area, I didn't know anyone, I would call him a lot at work just to talk to him because I was lonely.

 

Shortly after that, we had to move again and he had to give up his job. We moved back to my hometown and I got a job. For a year and a half, I worked full time, did freelance work at night, and went to school for one semester so we could get the student loan money to survive on.

 

He couldn't find a job in his field, got one telemarketing job that lasted a month, then about a year later, another one that lasted two months, then went to driving a cab.

 

Then we moved into a house and he got a regular job, but it was very low pay and had a horrible schedule.

 

Our eldest son was in school at this point but our youngest still wasn't and I got stuck home, all alone, all the time, with the kids, no car and no money to do anything with even if I did have the car.

 

I was also still trying to do freelance work from home.

 

I called him at work all the time. I screamed at him. The kids were driving me crazy. I was losing my mind.

 

He kept saying he wanted to find a better job, but he never did.

 

The schedule at his job was beyond horrible. There were times that we didn't know until the night before, if and what he had to work the next day.

 

I actually started blogging about his company and how terribly they treated their staff... and just the other day I remembered that I read it to him and asked his permission before I posted anything...

 

Soon after that, he was offered another job. Same money, but a 'school' schedule. His boss begged him not to leave. Promised him he'd work with his schedule.

 

And finally after two and a half years, my husband got a decent schedule.

 

For about a year, we were doing great, I thought. With him with a set, and normal schedule and no OT, I was finally able to grow my freelance business and we started to finally get ahead.

 

Then... 'she' came along. This woman, started flirting with him, telling him she doesn't fool around with married men, but continued flirting with him and started singing a song in his ear about how 'all the guys at work say what an unhappy home life he has...'

 

They were exchanging some highly inappropriate texts and Facebook messages, and I found out. He didn't think it counted as cheating because it was never physical. I felt it was a betrayal of our marriage. He had a pet nickname for her too... he called her 'little sithling' (temptation.)

 

It almost destroyed our marriage then... but we said we were going to try and work it out.

 

Shortly after that, she got promoted and became his boss. I told him I forgave him, but he had to cut all ties with her and that meant finding a new job.

 

Well a year later, he hadn't found a new job and once again, I found him sending her very inappropriate text messages and Facebook PM's.

 

I confronted her this time and told her that as his boss, she needed to tell him to stop. She instead chose to berate me for confronting her and then told him that "this drama causing behavior could affect her decision in any future promotions."

 

I was livid... this was textbook sexual harassment and I threatened to report both of them to their corporate offices.

 

One - Three months later... he's up for a promotion that will have him working directly with her, 12-14 hours every day. I said no. He already had another job in the works that paid about four bucks an hour more than he would in this new promotion position anyway... but he refused to turn it down.

 

During this time, I also made some bad decisions, one was to start emailing with someone I'd met on Craigslist, in the strictly platonic section whose ad said he just wanted someone to talk to, and his background was in real estate and personal finance (my own background.) Another was that one night while my husband and I were having sex, I couldn't look at him. I had looked away, and I knew it hurt him, but I was hurt and still trying... and I also called an attorney and made an appointment and told him that if he was taking that job with her, I wanted a post-nuptial agreement because I wasn't about to start buying real estate and then end up giving 'her' half of the assets I'd worked for when she finally did get him to leave me for her... I never did keep that appointment with the lawyer.

 

I was angry and hurt and didn't know what to do or where to turn, and my friends were all telling me that he shouldn't be taking that job and I should just file for divorce then.

 

But I didn't want a divorce. I wanted my husband. I wanted him away from that manipulative white trash whore, I wanted the life we'd been meant to build to finally manifest in the way it had finally started to until he was offered this promotion...

 

He took the job, immediately started working as much as 16 hours a day. I called all the time. Sometimes screaming, other times just crying...

 

He'd just lost about 100 lbs, and started dressing nicer too.

 

One day, we had such a horrible fight, he wanted to leave but I had the key to the car in my pocket and refused to give it to him... he tried to reach in and grab it and wound up ripping my shorts right off of me.

 

Our marriage and our and our kids were falling apart before my eyes and then one day he told me "The marriage was over for me 2.5 years ago, I just hadn't accepted it yet."

 

Then he said he just wanted a separation. To 'get his head on straight.'

 

At first, he said he didn't like himself with me. That he was afraid of himself with me. That 'everyone' told him "if you're with someone who is making you want to raise your hands to them, then you shouldn't be with that person."

 

Then he told me, "I don't like you. I don't like who you are. I don't like your politics, I don't like the way you handle money, I don't like how you parent, how you feel about cops and the military..."

 

Then he told me, "You are so-codependent and I made you that way." And "You stopped taking care of yourself. You stopped taking showers and putting on clean clothes every day. You won't get off your a** and do anything." And "You put everything on me... working, the house, the kids, the laundry, the dishes, the grocery shopping and the cooking."

 

And that was true, he did do a lot more around the house than I did and I did stop taking showers and putting clean clothes on every day.

 

BUT... yes, he did 'dishes.' Enough for one meal. The rest got stacked on the kitchen counter. And it was HIM who told me he didn't want me to wash the dishes. He said I just wasn't strong enough to get them clean. And yes he did more laundry than I did too... even though that very same summer I had started a '21 Day Habit Changing Challenge' to make it a 'habit' to wash, dry, fold and put away at least one load of laundry per day. And I did great, right up until the washing machine started leaking and he didn't know why so I stopped washing, but he kept going and somehow, the problem eventually corrected itself, but I didn't get back to my routine.

 

And then he proceeded to just unleash almost two months of Hell and Hatred on me...

 

He complained about the phone calls to his job and my blogging... saying I put his job, his 'career', in jeopardy. Even though I stopped calling him a year and a half before this all happened, and even though he gave me his blessing to post what I posted on the blog.

 

I told him I was going to go sleep on the couch... he said "No. I know you don't like sleeping in the bed alone without me, and I don't like sleeping in the bed without you." And at first, he still cuddled with me, but wouldn't have sex with me.

 

He said he was tired of being told he was wrong every day, that he was stupid every day, that his job wasn't good enough, that his overtime was costing us money... he'd been at that job for 3.5 years and never got a single raise. I made more money than he did when I could work but with the kids, I could only work enough to cover the bills his income couldn't... I couldn't get a regular, steady job with his schedule and once he got a regular schedule, my income from freelance far surpassed what I would make at a regular job.

 

Then he started wanting to go out. Two nights a week he said. Wednesday's and Saturday's. Saturday's were the nights my mom took the kids... our 'date' night.

 

During one fight, I said something about her and he said "I would have been happier with Liz." (his boss).

 

I did convince him to go to marriage counseling and we went to 4 whole sessions together, and she was utterly useless.

 

She asked him what was going on and he told her "I can't stand her. I can't stand being around her. I don't want to touch her. I don't want to 'try' to make the marriage work anymore." She just looked at me and said, "Well that's pretty clear. I can't 'make' him do anything.

 

She asked him why he fell in love with me in the first place and he said "I honestly can't remember. The best I can say is they needed my help."

 

Then she asked him if it was 'divorce' or if 'separation' was on the table and he said "That's what I wanted from the beginning, a separation."

 

When I brought up "Erica" at counseling, he said "She's just a friend who works in the same field as me, someone to talk to." (What I said about the Craigslist guy.)

 

The counselor never acknowledged his mixed emotions and signals, and when I told her about some of the things he was doing, she just looked at me and said "Why do you want to be with someone who is so disrespectful of you?"

 

At some point between November and December I suggested he just leave now and he said "I'm going to give my kids a good Christmas."

 

One night I said to him, "The Hell with it, I'll leave. You keep the house and the kids."

 

He finally asked me "Do you really want me to make an honest effort?" I said "Yes, I do." He agreed and for about 6 days we were fine. Then he did a complete 180 and said he 'realized he was lying to himself.'

 

My depression was getting worse, I had a razor blade held to my wrists one night... and just told me "If you're going to do it, give the kids one GREAT day before you do."

 

Then he stayed out all night and a few days letter, when I mentioned 'the whore' he said "I'm talking to someone else now. Her name is Erica."

 

Shortly after that, we needed to buy a new car and we were at the dealership and they asked me to cosign because I had a higher credit score... while we were waiting on the paperwork, he told me he was still going to go apply for the other job (that paid more). I asked "Is that what Liz wants you to do?" He snarled at me "No, but I'm pretty sure Erica is interested." He also told me that Erica is a black girl and he doesn't date black girls.

 

That day, he also told me that he'd been written up twice at work and that 'luckily Liz was going to bat for him because she knew he just needed to get his head straight about his home life.' (Once again, planting that idea in his head that he had an unhappy home life and it was affecting his job, completely ignoring the fact that her and the job were what was making his home life an unhappy one.)

 

We bought the truck and went to see Star Wars together that night. (I'd planned to go by myself and that morning he asked if I was still going and I said yes, and he said "I'd ask if I could come but that's probably out of the question." I told him of course he could come. So we went.

 

The next day he had to work until 9 and at 9:10 PM I get a text saying he is going for a drive and needs to 'clear his head.'

 

He came home at 1:30 am and told me, "We've got this truck now, and we're tied to each for another 7 years. And you need at least 6 months to get back into real estate, but I 'need' to leave in February..."

 

He told me that he was going to sleep in a car so he could make sure the bills here got paid.

 

Two days before Christmas, we had one gift under the tree for the kids and he went out to play cards instead of finishing the shopping and putting the tree up.

 

He was trying to make me hate him.

 

Christmas came and went and two days after it, the youngest son and I got very sick with a nasty flu. We had fevers spiking up to 104 degrees around 6pm that night, and still had to drive out to pick him up from work.

 

He asked me if I wanted to go to the ER and I said "Yes, but I'm really tired" He said "Then sleep." So I slept.

 

In the morning, I still had a high fever and woke him up early to ask him to take us to the ER. He wouldn't get up. When he finally did get up, and I asked him again, he started screaming at me about how I was just 'manipulating' him into taking the day off work and then he threatened to take the truck and hide it so I would never find it, and threatened to turn off all my utilities (they were all in his name.)

 

That night, he came home from work and said "I need the key to the truck, I have go out."

 

I asked "What for?" and he said "I have to go take care of something."

I had to push and ask "What?" He said "I have to go take care of the grocery shopping for work." I said no, told him he wasn't leaving the kids and I without a car while we were sick so he could go off with his whore... it was a screaming match, he left on foot and has never returned.

 

The next day, he had his direct deposit for paycheck sent to a new prepaid credit card, locking me out of the marital income, leaving the kids and I at his mercy of paying the bills. And that same day, our youngest and I were taken by ambulance to the ER for the flu we'd been fighting... he refused to go home to get our truck to come and pick us up... but the next day, after I told him they told us that we couldn't be around people for the next 5 days, he said he was going to take the truck for 5 days.

 

He did and twice he had to bring stuff over to the house for us, and both times when I asked him when he would bring the truck back, he refused to answer me or give a straight answer at all.

 

The second time was New Years Eve Day... and when I asked him when he was bringing it back, he just rolled up the window of the car and refused to answer me. I got in the car and he tried to drive off with it as I was getting in, but didn't succeed. Then he called the police thinking they would make me give him the truck because he told them he had to sleep in it... they didn't. In fact, I told them that he'd had it for 5 days but refused to tell me when he'd return it, and I wasn't going to be left home with two kids and no car anymore when he couldn't have the decency to answer me about when he'd bring it back. I told him I'd be happy to drive him anywhere he wanted to go... they told him to take the ride. Finally he agreed to have it back by 8am the next morning... and I said ok. He left and then dropped it off at a grocery store that night, sending me a text at 8pm telling me where it was.

 

He told me he 'borrowed' a car to sleep in and that he was sleeping in a car so he could 'pay my bills.'

 

He started telling people he was 'driven out' by being accused of screwing around when he wasn't. (Staying out all night, he'd have been happier with Liz, now there's 'Erica'... who the Hell wouldn't have thought he was screwing around?)

 

For the entire month of January he was looking me straight in the eye and telling me he was staying with a 55 year old woman who was a 'friend of Erica's.'

 

A couple of weeks later, I met with him to talk, and all he he wanted to discuss was what each of us would get out of a divorce... he had divorce papers in his hand, and he'd filled out some of his own financials, but we discussed, he wrote on scratch paper.

 

I told him I expected around a $7,500 refund that I would need to live off of until I could find a job, (reminding him that it took him over a year to find one) and that I needed to fix the house he'd allowed to fall down around us... broken windows, leaky roof, leaks in the plumbing... AND buy a car! And each time I mentioned a 'need' that *I* had, he got angry and nearly shut down the entire conversation.

 

He wanted the utilities out of his name within 3 months, to pay none of them, would only make payments on a few joint bills until the tax return came in and then wanted me to use that to pay off our old car, pay off the tires on it, and give him $500 for him to get new dentures. He wanted the truck we'd just bought, and 5 months to get it refinanced in his own name. And he wasn't going to sign with me to get a car for me. He wanted me to take $1,500 of the tax return money and go to a 'buy here pay here' to get a piece of junk or pay cash for one.

 

Even though he'd walked out, taking his $30,000 a year income with him, leaving me with no job, except for my freelance work which I was never going to be able to keep up with now that him and his 'support' were gone.

 

That night I got to see the car and get the tag number of the car he 'borrowed'.

 

A couple of weeks later, he sent me a text around 10 pm and asked me if there was enough money in our joint checking account for him to buy cigarettes. I said yes and the next morning I saw a charge from a store in the neighborhood she lives in.

 

It took me about 5 days to get up the courage to drive out there and face what I knew to be true... and there was his car.

 

So I called her on the phone and asked her, "So how long has my husband been living with you?" She lied to me, told me that was her aunt's car and he must have borrowed it from her when they met when she had him pick her aunt up from the hospital for her... and she told me that 'the staff' told her that he has a girlfriend named Erica. (Why the Hell was MY husband running HER 'personal errands' for her?)

 

Twenty minutes later, he called me screaming at me that he just got chewed out by his boss because I called her house, but then...

 

At 12:30 in the morning that night, I got a phone call from a woman named "Katherine" who told me that she was Liz's aunt and that she was Liz and Erica's aunt, and that my husband was there but was sleeping with Erica.

 

And that Erica is a stripper who makes 'bank' but doesn't have a car and is saving her money to buy a Mercedes. That she's had two relationships, both with married men, and she weighs 98 pounds and is absolutely beautiful. They live in a trailer in one of the worst areas of town though...

 

She also told me that she doesn't like my husband, that he's slow in the head, lazy and that 'Liz' and the rest of the bosses at his job were trying to get my husband to step down from his new position. And she told me that Erica is not black.

 

For two days, this woman called me constantly, telling me how she didn't want my husband there, but her niece did and she couldn't throw him out because it had to be her niece's decision, pretending to be my friend but at the same time telling me how he'd bought this woman jewelry and how he'd done this and that with her, for her, etc...

 

And then that night he called my mother and told her he's shutting everything off and taking 'his' tag off of our truck. That's when I confronted him about the jewelry and taking her to see a movie he and I went to see, and everything else the aunt told me...

 

Then the aunt called me, screaming at me about it. I hung up on her and that night, at 4:30 am, she called my cell phone and hung up on me.

 

The next morning, at 10 am, she called again and said "Oh, you're phone is still on? Well it'll be turned off today. You have 30 days on the electric." And hung up on me. Then at 4:30 am that night, she called and hung up again.

 

A week later, I came home to find my cable and internet down. I called and they told me it had been cancelled the same day he turned my cell phone off. I called the power company to check on that and it was fine. He hadn't even removed my authorization to talk to them.

 

The next week was the week of our eldest son's birthday and he told me he couldn't make it to a party and wouldn't help pay for it either. I said, "these are our kids" and he said "No they're YOUR kids that I happen to love and care about."

 

Then... he called me on a Friday night a week or two later, and wanted to borrow the truck because the car he was borrowing broke down. I asked him, "Are you really sleeping with a stripper?" He said 'yea,' in that 'sarcastic' tone that he uses when you're asking something like that, knowing damn well he'd never sleep with a stripper. But he also cut me off and refused to talk about anything besides what he wanted to talk about, which was him using the truck... I said "Well what do I get?" He said "I'll give you my W-2" (I needed to file the taxes because I was broke and he stopped paying the bills.) I told him I would think about it. Then I asked him about our other bills, again, he refused to discuss anything but what he wanted to discuss and just said "Nevermind, I'll take care of it myself." I had my mom call him and she told him, "You can go out all night and stay out and play cards, and move in with someone, but she went to Jacksonville for a weekend to get away from all the sh*t, and you gave her sh*t about it... and every time she needs something from you, you tell her it's 'not my problem', so why should she do this for you?" He told her he was taking HIS tag off the truck... so that night, I took it off and brought it in the house. He told my mother "She can make $2,000 -$6,000 a month! I've seen it." My mother said "Then why do you live the way you live and why are you complaining to everyone in the world about how she wouldn't get a real job?"

 

The next day I sent him texts and and email asking about the W-2 and telling him he could borrow the truck but that I needed it too for job interviews I had lined up, so we had to work it out... he ignored them.

 

Then, Sunday morning, he showed up at my house at 10:30 am, no phone call, 'demanding' the truck. "I need the truck! And where the F*** is MY tag?"

 

I said "I took it off because you threatened to steal it and last night the kids were screwing around in the bedroom and lost it." He said "Well get your a** in there and find it." I asked him if he had the W-2 and he showed it to me.

 

I called the kids to come home and find it but their friends' Dad didn't answer his phone... and that's when my husband barged into the house, into the bedroom and into the closet and started taking tools... I told him no he couldn't take them. He said he needed them to fix his car. I asked when I would get them back and as always he refused to answer...

 

At this point, I called my neighbors and asked them to come over to make sure I had witnesses... they came right over and witnessed the rest of what happened which included him telling me three times "Get your fat a** in there and file the taxes" (and when I went inside, he still refused to give me the W-2,) and him pushing me and spitting in my face and telling me how he found a 'better woman than you.'

 

Funny to be soooo pissed off JUST because I found out that you are living at the home of the boss who tried to destroy our marriage... hmmm?

 

He left on foot that day and my neighbors were telling me to call the police and file a domestic violence injunction against him for pushing me and spitting in my face... but I didn't want to do that. I still love him and I know that would ruin his entire life and he'll never get a job again. One of them called him and told him that the others were pushing me to call. I sent him an email, recounting what had happened and telling him that I wish he'd get help for his anger issues. That I loved him and forgave him, but I would not be disrespected anymore. I admitted to having done plenty wrong in our marriage, but I was never unfaithful to him and I never hid money from him. Twenty minutes later I got a phone call from my mom that he'd dropped the W-2 off at her house.

 

Over the next two weeks, I emailed him about our credit card bill, car insurance, and both car payments, and even offered to give him HALF of the money back for each bill once I got the tax return... he didn't respond, didn't pay any of the bills at all, and left me holding the bag, but he made sure he forwarded me a Notice of Cancellation for the car insurance... I ignored it.

 

I decided to shut down all communication and just stop talking to him altogether.

 

I got the tax return and immediately took it out of our joint checking account and put it into a personal account of my own. I called our car insurance and told them we had separated and they put me through to a special department that handles these kinds of things... they said because he was the primary account holder and no longer in the house, that I wasn't covered anymore and they had to issue me a whole new policy... and now he owes on the old policy and will be 100% responsible for it and I won't.

 

I paid OFF our joint credit card and closed that account too.

 

And I paid all the other bills he'd left me with.

 

Then, 9 days after I'd ceased communication, my mom called to tell me that he called her and said he was dropping some stuff off at her house for the boys' that night and that I needed to make the car payment on our old car... she told him "Well, you're not holding up your end of the deal," and he told her "No, no no.... turned his back on her and walked away."

 

The next morning I noticed some strange charges to our joint checking account, and went to the bank. My personal banker tried to call him to ask if he'd made them, but he didn't answer. So we made a fraud claim and stopped all debits from going through... which included his payments on the tires and on his MS office suite.

 

I sent him an email, out of respect, to let him know that he needed to call those two companies and make sure he directed them to charge his own account that his paycheck goes to, since we had a block on ours now.

 

He emailed me back saying he didn't make the charges, he would take care of his two bills, and that I had the 7.5 from the tax return and to keep it and the truck and that I would have to turn the power on in my own name as of Monday.

 

Well Monday was a holiday and it was scheduled to be disconnected that day. I called him and asked him for another week on it because it's a HUGE deposit of $880.00 and I really couldn't afford to spend that out of the tax return... he said he wanted $1,500 from me. His 'share' of the tax return... (Nevermind that he came into this marriage with a $4,200 tax debt that got paid off out of the EIC from MY kids 3 years ago... and nevermind the entire year I supported him 100%)... and nevermind that that was twice what the deposit for the electric would be... but I agreed. I thought maybe it was a way back for us...

 

We met at the bank the next day and it was horrible. All posturing from him... we spent the whole day negotiating. I offered him the truck if he would just pay off our other car and sign with me for me to buy the car I wanted to begin with... but he also wanted the $1,500 to have the engine rebuilt in his car that he 'borrowed' and now had to 'buy' from 'the aunt'. But then he offered me that piece of junk.

 

And that day, he looked me in the eye and told me he was in a new relationship, that she is the "stripper" named "Erica" and that she does weigh 98lbs. When I told him, "You don't like skinny girls, you're afraid you'll break them." He said "Well I've lost 100lbs and I'm not afraid anymore and she's really flexible." And that she was a black girl again now...

 

He said he wasn't going in to work for a while though... but refused to elaborate on why... so I asked him "Oh did they force you to step down like that aunt said they were going to?" A strange look came over his face for a second but he just said "You don't need to know anything about my life."

 

At one point during the day he got angry and said "In 9 months when we get the divorce, we'll take care of this then." I asked "Why 9 months?" And he said "Because I'm still pissed."

 

Then he told someone else it's because he doesn't want to pay me alimony.

 

I asked him why he hasn't filed yet, he said it's because he doesn't have the $450 for the filing fees... but he also said he has a lawyer and has been making payments to the lawyer.

 

At the end of the day, I told him I wasn't going to give him the money. That I loved him and would support him, but I will not support another woman.

 

And that was the last communication I had with him. I had to pay the electric deposit myself and now he has no more power over me at all.

 

I've had a few job interviews and a couple that look pretty promising, and there are a few other jobs out there for me as well.

 

I still want to save my marriage, but I don't know what to do anymore. I'm trying to live my own life, going out, meeting new people, making new friends... and I'm missing having a man in bed with me at night with his arms around me. But I don't want to start a new relationship with anyone either...

 

I don't actually believe the stripper story at all... and neither does anyone else. Everyone thinks he's sleeping with his boss, including me.

 

Or that the stripper is a cover story because they know that if I expose them to their corporate offices, they'll both be out of jobs.

 

But I also know that doing that would just make him angrier and there would be no hope of reconciliation.

 

Two days ago he showed up here again, while I was in the shower. My neighbor was over and she told him I was in the shower and he said he was just here to pick up the power cord for his computer and then left.

 

That Sunday he showed up for the truck I asked him in that email to stop coming here without calling first. He abandoned this family, this home and everything in it for another woman... with excuses about things that happened 3.5 years ago and stopped happening a year and a half ago, and then changed his stories, and kept pushing me and pushing me to get 'reactions' to the way he was treating me, so he could justify leaving me... a month after he started working long hours with the homewrecker who planted the idea in his mind that 'all the guys think' he has an 'unhappy home life'... all guys who aren't married, have kids from different women, or no kids at all, have been divorced 3 times, or have never had a real relationship in their lives and are 40 years old and still living with their mothers...

 

He keeps saying this isn't 'our home', it's MY house... he doesn't live here anymore. But he keeps barging in like he does. I'm changing the locks this weekend, but beyond that, I don't know what else to do anymore.

 

Yesterday, the guy at our gas station (we've known him for years) said "I think you two are going to get back together, I just have a feeling."

 

A lot of people have told me that he's having a very bad mid-life crisis and that he's on a train headed for a brick wall and I need to get off the train. And that he's going to hit rock bottom and then want to come crawling back to me.

 

But I don't know what to do in the meantime... I can only shut down communication so much... when the kids say "I want to talk to Dad" what am I supposed to say to them?

 

I've got some friends that will text him and say "Your kids would like to talk to you, call them on my phone," and he will call them back. And he's promised them that he'll come see them 'soon' but there's always some excuse why he doesn't and he won't 'commit' to any arrangements either.

 

I do miss having a man in my bed at night, with his arms around me but I don't want to start a new relationship and then he wants to come back and the new guy gets hurt. And I don't want to be the one to file for divorce either.

 

And as I've read through this forum, I've seen many people say to tell the other person's spouse about the affair too... because the cheaters need to face the consequences of their actions. In this case, she doesn't have a spouse, but they do have their job who certainly would fire her for her behavior. But I don't really think it would matter at this point. Even if they got FIRED, they'd still never admit to themselves that they've done anything wrong, they'll just write it off as "Well, they had to fire us because she threatened to blog about it if they didn't."

 

So I'm lost...

[Satu]

Tl;dr.

 

(Too long; didn't read.)

[minimariah]

1. stop trying to save your marriage. it's really past the point of salvation and you're wasting your time & energy on something that's totally hopeless. your marriage is done - try to accept that and move on with your life.

 

2. file for a divorce. he is not your children's Dad and he won't ever be - he won't take care of them and you'll have to explain that to them. get counseling for them to help them cope: it's just the three of you. your two kids and you = your family. don't look for anther father for them and you can go ahead and cut off this "father" from their lives, too. wandering parents are dangerous and if he won't step up and take care of them REGULARLY - he doesn't need to take care of them at all.

 

3. don't go to their job - that would only humiliate you further. if he is with another woman, his boss - so be it. he's not your problem anymore, that's all that matters.

[Mr. Lucky]

minimariah, I admire your perseverance. Might be the longest post I've ever seen on LS.

 

OP, she might be a "white trash whore" and a "homewrecker" but I doubt she's held a gun to his head. He's willingly danced to every note. It does you no good to demonize her while trying to understand him - he doesn't deserve the free pass you're trying to give him.

 

Put him behind you and move on...

 

Mr. Lucky

[dreamingoftigers]

Don't reconcile with this moron. Just read what he's out you through!

 

He can't be that impossible to replace. Seriously. Just look at all of the lowlife crap he's done. So petty!

[sandylee1]

I'm sorry but this marriage is really over. Saying he felt sorry for you and all the other disrespect is just too much. This nonsense about him sleeping at another woman's house is not acceptable for a married man.

 

The therapist was not useless as you said ... she is right and she cannot help when the two parties don't want it to work

 

That's when you should have filed for divorce really. You will only suffer more pain and this is not good for your children. How can you love a man who treats you like this? Do not let your sons think that this is acceptable behaviour. It's time to focus on you and the boys now.

 

None of what you describe in the very very long post is what true love resembles. You need to accept the end and stand independently and see him as history. No self respecting man would treat you the way he has.