going through a hard time

[brandonkothell]

I'm really sorry to hear that you're going through a hard time. It's important to acknowledge your feelings and give yourself the space to heal. Remember, seeking support from friends, family, or professionals can make a difference. You’re not alone in this, and brighter days will come.

[heartwhole2]

Your story is very similar to mine. My STBX blindsided me five weeks ago with a separation (well, technically he brought it up a month before, but I thought our efforts to reconnect were going well). I'm a SAHM with a chronic illness. Our 20th anniversary would have been in a couple of months.

Have you seen a lawyer yet? I didn't want to either. My STBX gets mad about stuff like that, and I realized I was walking on eggshells trying not to upset him. But is that a good reason to take his word for it that he's offering me a fair settlement? My family helped me set up a couple of consultations. They were both in the $400-$500 range. One lawyer wanted a $20k retainer, and the other a $5k retainer. Luckily I liked the less expensive one better. It's your money, and you are entitled to spend it on a lawyer, but if you don't want to cross that bridge yet, then maybe you can borrow it. I borrowed the retainer from my mom just so I could wait to play my hand. I did finally tell I have a lawyer after he was not getting me the documents I needed in a timely manner.

My lawyer is helping me figure out how to divide our assets and verifying everything my STBX put on his spreadsheet. I will be taken care of financially, and I can concentrate on living a simpler life and saving. He ran out and bought himself another expensive house close to here (as well as saying he wants to keep our second home, which we just rebuilt so it has a ton of debt), so he is not going to have any disposable income, but that's not my problem. I get to be free of his inability to save and tendency to rob Peter to pay Paul. 

He thought, on top of everything else that he chooses to do (multiple sports, hobbies, serving on non-profit boards, daily exercise and coffee with friends, happy hours/concerts/etc several nights a week), that he could manage 50/50 custody, but I asked for 4/3 and he conceded. (Well, really it's Sun/Mon/Tues nights with me, Wed/Thurs with him, and we alternate Fri/Sat). I also get them after school until he gets home, and in the summer during the day. Basically he wanted it to say 50/50 but I would be available for all this extra stuff. 🙄 I'm sure it will wind up being more 57/43 but at least it recognizes that I will have them more. It hardly impacts the child support, so it's not about that . . . I just want it to be recognized how much I have them.

If your wife has controlled the finances, then you need access to all of the accounts so you can verify what is in there. You also need to talk to a lawyer. I think you would be entitled to spousal support. I will also remain the beneficiary on the life insurance policies, so that I will be OK if he dies.

I know my STBX is offended that I got a lawyer, but he's also an idiot if he thinks I would just take his word for it that the arrangement he made up himself is fair and honest. It's time to start detaching yourself from your STBX and her moods and whims. It doesn't matter what she wants here . . . it matters what you are legally entitled to.

[tzorno]

22 hours ago, heartwhole2 said:

. I will also remain the beneficiary on the life insurance policies, so that I will be OK if he dies.

How did you manage that?  I kicked my ex off of everything when she left.  I'm surprised and shocked he agreed to that.

[heartwhole2]

9 minutes ago, tzorno said:

How did you manage that?  I kicked my ex off of everything when she left.  I'm surprised and shocked he agreed to that.

Well the ink isn't dry yet so I shouldn't speak too soon. But the fact is that I paid off all his debts, out-earned him early in our marriage, bought our first condo, gave up my career to be a SAHM, and then got a chronic illness from having his kids that means I can't earn any meaningful money. So if he died and the lifetime alimony went away before I can draw from his social security and before the rental properties I'm getting are paid off so they generate real income, I'd be SOL. So my lawyer said we will have him keep me as the beneficiary. He doesn't have a lawyer, at least not yet, because in his head he's an expert at everything. So he's been agreeing to everything so far. We'll see when it comes time to sign.

ETA: I think he genuinely feels bad and wants to make sure I'm taken care of, but also . . . I have a pretty sympathetic story, right? He doesn't want to be the guy who cheated on his sick wife and then abandoned her ten years later, only to screw her financially. And he's really close with our girls and doesn't want to leave their mom high and dry. So he is offering me more than half of our assets, and a decent monthly payment. And then my lawyer pointed out, well what if he dies?

The thing I'm struggling with is appreciating that at least financially, he's trying to make this easy on me. He's being a completely incompetent idiot about setting up his own household and taking care of the girls' schedules and needs. He is someone who needs huge amounts of appreciation and I know he wants me to be all, "Oh wow, you didn't screw me, you are the best," but he fired me from the job of making him feel better all the time. And legally . . . I am entitled to maintain my lifestyle. So I don't see why I should have to thank him for doing what a judge would make him do anyway. 

This is all part of the process of detaching and figuring out boundaries, which is what I'm working on now.

Edited October 17, 2024 by heartwhole2

[heartwhole2]

8 hours ago, tzorno said:

Are you though?  Your going to get alimony (in which the house and rental properties may need to be sold for him to pay it) and child support until you don't.  Also, what is this lifetime alimony your speaking of?  Your even talking about getting his social security,,,,,,,what?  If he eventually lawyers up, i'm afraid a lot of this isn't going to end up as said.  And there's no way you can be left as a beneficiary unless he continues to agree upon that which is crazy to me.  I dropped my ex immediately and appointed my daughter.

I know you were done wrong Heart and I feel awful for you and wish the best, but this is a classic example of why men are refusing to marry in this day and age.  He was at fault, make no mistake about that, but it's going to be near impossible to start a new and lucrative life now because he's going to be giving you the majority of whatever he makes and it's going to be for years and years.  Does he deserve that,,,,probably.  Is it fair,,,,,i'm not so sure it's reasonable. 

 

I can see that my circumstances have triggered you. I'm not going to reply to your post any more. Be well.

[heartwhole2]

Well it's my first weekend without the kids, though one had a haircut today and the other is off of school tomorrow and getting a mani/pedi for homecoming. So it's not like I'm not seeing them. I'm happy about that, especially this first weekend, but also, I haven't had a break for over 5 weeks; they've been with me constantly. So I do want to set some boundaries around what I'll do. I shouldn't have been surprised - STBX did manage to get his responsibilities on their first night together confused, and I had to call him because he left our child hanging with no ride. I did resist the instinct to swoop in and drive her myself.

We had coparenting therapy today, which didn't feel as useful as last time. She just made us talk about every single holiday. It did get me when he talked about swapping who gets "the good part of Christmas," as the therapist called it. He also brought up taking time to vacation solo or with people other than our kids, which honestly had not even occurred to me. But of course, this is a guy who probably spends 20 nights a year on guys' trips so I shouldn't have been surprised. I did say, "Is there anything I can do to make the calendar easier for you to follow?" Hint hint. Perhaps try reading it, for a start.

My lawyer finally got all the financial info so I think we are close to a counter-proposal. In STBX's favor, she did say that his initial offer seemed pretty close to what is fair, and that's unusual. So I'll give him that. I do think he realizes that it's shitty to leave a chronically ill woman who was kind and loyal even after he had an affair, and being seen as a good father and person is really important to him. So I'm glad for that. I'm not willing to go too far, though, because "not being a jerk who tries to screw me over" is the bare minimum, not some kind of badge of honor.

I'm seeing just how terrible he was for my health. He exhausted me. He was never present, never satisfied, always convinced he was right about everything and that I was all these things I am not. It's been (not) amusing to see him tell me incorrect things, like he claimed that I could not qualify for a mortgage for two years based on alimony . . . a quick google search shows it's 6 months (confirmed by my lawyer). Or when he told me that an ex-spouse could not be the beneficiary of life insurance because of a law designed to prevent murders (there is no such law, obviously). This is something he is supposed to know for his job, btw. I said, "If I was going to murder you, I'd do it now, before we split our assets," because I am hilarious like that. When I asked him for the policy information, he told me it would be "impossible to get." Excuse me sir, we are still legally married and if you died today, I just . . . couldn't get the information? He did provide it to my lawyer, after finding it while cleaning out his nightstand. I never touched the horrible pile of papers. 

I gave my bedroom a mini make-over, and it feels so peaceful without STBX's clutter. The whole house does, really. He always acted like I was the messy one, but he left . . . hats on top of the piano, shoes on the dining room floor, etc. He took up half of the dining room table with his work stuff every day. In some kind of metaphor for our marriage, I gave him more and more of the hooks in the coat closet until he had 9 and the girls and I each had 3. I would always be like, "Here, I created a space for your hats/shoes/work stuff/hoodies" and he would never put his things there. And even if he did, there were 3x as many of those things as the space could hold. He had 3/4 of the closet space, 3/4 of the dresser space. I kept my off season clothes under the bed.

But you know, all of that could have just been the price of living with another human, if he'd been kind and present and invested in our relationship, if he'd seen me. He didn't, and that's really lonely. I'm glad he set me free.

[tzorno]

11 hours ago, heartwhole2 said:

I can see that my circumstances have triggered you. I'm not going to reply to your post any more. Be well.

Not triggered, just confused by some of the things you've said.  Fair enough.  I wish you nothing but the best and well being in the future.

[BaileyB]

You obviously have a good lawyer, I’m sure that she will negotiate a good settlement for you.

In my case - my husband was married previously. He paid alimony and child support for several years as determined by the court. His ex-wife is most definitely not the beneficiary of his pension or life insurance. She is entitled to part of his pension and social security but only for the years they were married and I believe (as it relates to social security), only is she requests it. 

Edited October 18, 2024 by BaileyB

[Leihla_B]

14 hours ago, heartwhole2 said:

I said, "If I was going to murder you, I'd do it now, before we split our assets," because I am hilarious like that.

Hah! You're also an excellent writer. And a good Mom. You've got this!

[heartwhole2]

Well, to nobody's shock, he's having an affair. I don't know if it physically started before he left. I'm mostly just angry that he wasn't honest. That after everything, he still chose to lie when I need the truth.

The OW's husband is a friend of mine and we have teamed up, like the protagonists in a sad revenge movie. We are sitting on the information for now (it was only confirmed by us sharing notes). 

[heartwhole2]

I thought I'd pop by with an update.

I did confront my STBX shortly after posting my last update. He tried to deny/deflect for about five seconds, but since it wasn't my first rodeo, I district-attorneyed him into a confession pretty quickly. 

I had about four months of acute grief, which seems to be waning pretty noticeably over the last month. I did a lot of weeping, and couldn't really talk to people without bursting into tears. I don't find my emotions embarrassing but it's nice to be in a place where I can have a conversation without needing a tissue.

Coparenting therapy is a mixed bag. I found a podcast by divorce attorneys interviewing our therapist where she talks about how even when there is a reasonable parent and unreasonable parent, it's not her job to diagnose anyone. It's her job to focus on both parents' strengths and to represent the children. So while a lot of therapy is me explaining dumb stuff he has done and the therapist nodding along with whatever I say, I don't feel like it's really helping me. But from my assessment, I'm not the one bunging things up with the kids so maybe that makes sense.

The girls seem to be doing well overall. Our 15 year old has asked to do therapy, but our 12 year old is hesitant to do it from not liking it in the past. They both have adults (coaches, ministers, that kind of thing) in their life looking out for them. They both seem angry at STBX. When he calls they generally roll their eyes and say, "Ugh, why is he calling?" I know this might be an attempt to show solidarity with me, but I try to avoid showing them how angry I am. I noticed my 12 year old had a bunch of pictures of me in her room and none of him, so I said, "You know sweetie, it's OK to have pictures of Daddy in this house." She said she didn't have any, which I know isn't true, but I let it drop.

My 15 year old seems to need extra closeness with me at the moment. She wants to sit with me all evening, sometimes holding hands. If she's at STBX's house, she Facetimes me for an hour or two while she does homework etc. You're probably imagining an immature girl, but I think it's actually that she's older and more mature than most of her peers. She makes friends with adult women easily. I am encouraging her to lean in to some friendships at school while also trying to be there for her when she needs.

The coparenting therapist advised us not to tell the girls about the affair, but I fear that it will be obvious whenever STBX introduces her as his new girlfriend. They know they were close friends before and the woman was inexplicably showing up to all my kids' events before he left me. And her little boy said over the summer that STBX was his worst enemy and he didn't want him to marry his Mommy, so their kids will figure it out too. And I worry that will impact the already tenuous relationship he has with them right now. 

I don't think STBX is really aware that the girls are mad at him. He's afraid of them asking questions that will require him to lie or own up to the truth, so I imagine there's a wall there. He only has them 40% of the time (it should be 43% but he is always giving me extra nights for work and personal travel) and yet they never ask to call or see him when they're with me. When they're with him, I get a lot of requests to stop by for a hug or a chat. He complained in coparenting therapy that they didn't really call him or reply to his texts when I took them on vacation over break, but I think that's because he hasn't established regular contact with them when they're at home with me, so why would it seem necessary when they're busy with vacation?

Oh! I forgot a funny turn of events. So STBX bought that new house only four days into our separation. As soon as he moved in, he developed these terrible throat ulcers. Then the skin on his face and back started falling off. It turns out he has a rare autoimmune disorder and he has to be on steroids and get infusions. This is the man who always told me that a vacation with me wasn't a vacation for him, because of my chronic illness. Then for good measure, one of his teeth fell out eating a taco with the girls. He's literally falling apart. There may be an environmental trigger in his new house, and/or it's the stress of him not being able to pretend he's a good guy doing this in a healthy way. My friends all joke that I am clearly a witch, and I don't know, the tooth thing made me start to wonder . . . 😂

His girlfriend's husband and I have become very good friends. I am aware of the temptation to make him my surrogate spouse in an emotional sense, and we've tried to set up guardrails around how much we text. Our solution was to keep notes on topics we'd like to discuss and then meet up every two weeks. Our chat this week lasted three hours. He is a very emotionally mature, curious, and kind person. I understand that this may be a little weird, and certainly neither of us should be dating yet, but I also don't see the harm in a mutually comforting friendship. 

I've also enjoyed getting to learn how selfish and jealous my husband's girlfriend is. She actually moved out for 9 months and refused to let the children come to her rental because it was her "sanctuary," so she only saw them a few nights a week to put them to bed. When her husband asked how they should handle Santa in two houses, she suggested just telling them that Santa isn't real (their youngest is 7). Her husband is the primary caregiver and she will need to pay him alimony. I'm sure she is having lots of fun dealing with my husband's reaction to all his maladies (he has a very low tolerance for discomfort and suffering). 

I've been enjoying the ability to go out with girlfriends and am feeling more and more like myself. I wept daily for four months, and I still cry here and there, but I feel I am doing as well as can be expected. I wish I had a better coparent for my girls, but I have to accept that it is what it is, and I need to figure out why I ignored how lacking he was as a husband and father for so long. Without me to cover for him, his failures are even more obvious. (For example, he planned two week-long solo trips over the summer, and none with the kids. And when I pointed this out in therapy, he didn't even get the point and shot back, "Well YOU'RE taking them to the beach for ten days!" I had to explain that my concern was our children feeling rejected by his focus on himself.)

Just one more funny anecdote and then I'm done . . . at our last coparenting session, I told the therapist we hadn't spoken except by text in two months, and that he seemed to be avoiding me (this made the therapist gasp). He could have just said, "Well I've been sick; we should do better" but instead he became indignant and said, "Well I haven't spoken to her because she sent me text messages that were full of invective and which assassinated my character!" I was genuinely confused so I said, "Well I understand that that's how it made you feel, but I don't remember saying anything that wasn't factual, so could you give an example?" And all he could come up with was that I had once said that I felt I did more emotional labor in our marriage than he did. So I just looked at him with pity and said, "Well couldn't you have said to yourself, 'I cheated on her and abandoned her, so maybe it's normal that she feels that way,' and couldn't you have given me some grace instead of avoiding me?" And all he could say was, " . . . Oh. Right."

So, that's the update to the soap opera that is my life at the moment.

[heartwhole2]

One last anecdote that people always enjoy . . . So I confronted him as soon as I put it together (once I had her husband's permission . . . he actually wanted me to do it because he knew he would never get a straight answer out of her). My husband admitted to sleeping with her as soon as he left me (so by his own account he slept with us both within the same week, but he claims there was no overlap, which of course I doubt but I do have reasons for thinking he was dumb enough to be honest about that). He also admitted to taking her to our vacation home and sleeping in our bed there during the period between when he left me and I found out. During this time they pretended to be friends and would "run into" each other at events, often around her kids (but never around ours . . . I think he knew our girls would be suspicious).  

Her husband waited three weeks after this to confront her, so my STBX and his girlfriend had three weeks to get their stories straight. I even told him, "This is my story and I'm going to tell anyone I want, so you should get ahead of it." But his conflict avoidance is too dominant. So when her husband confronted her in coparenting therapy (we see the same therapist, isn't that cute), she had obviously not been warned that I knew, and she tried to lie her butt off. She said, "No, there's nothing going on between us. We're just friends. I don't know where you're getting your information from." And he said, "I'm getting my information from what STBX told heartwhole2" and it was a record-scratching moment. I totally called it; I said that he would just choose to hope that I wouldn't tell anyone rather than upset his girlfriend. So he left her high and dry instead. So then she claimed that OK, they dated briefly, but she'd already broken up, which was news to my STBX when I told him, lol. 

So in coparenting therapy they've both agreed not to be around our kids for a year (since September for him, and since last month for her, because even though she left sooner, she did it in a confusing way that didn't signal to the kids that they were really separated). She told her husband that STBX was going to help her move her stuff out last month, and her husband felt really icky about that, but then they showed up two hours early when one of the kids was home, so STBX had to stand outside doing nothing by the truck because he wasn't allowed near the child. Great job, guys.

One thing that irritated me was that I accidentally agreed to the same custody schedule they have before I knew about the affair, so STBX and his girlfriend always have the same weekends free. So back in November I came up with a reason why we need to double up weekends next month, and then we will be on opposite weekends until they realize what's happened and try to get back on the same schedule. It's my March surprise. I play the long game. I can't take credit for his body parts fallings off, but that bit of mischief is all me.

[heartwhole2]

My STBX does keep (un)helpfully saying that he misses me and wants to text me several times a day, and he wonders if there was anything he could have done differently.

Gee, I don't know, maybe you could have actually communicated and then gone to counseling instead of running off to sleep with someone else. Just a thought. 

He said this so many times that finally I said, "Look, this may be unkind to say, but I miss having a husband physically and practically, but I don't miss you, because you were never around or emotionally available." That did get him to stop saying it. As I have invested more in friendships with people who seem to actually like me and pay attention to me, I realize how distant and self-absorbed my STBX was.

Meanwhile, his girlfriend likes to tell her husband that she never loved him and should have never married him. This is after making him go to counseling for a long time where she gave him a laundry list of things to change. 

These are very opposite, but equally unhealthy, ways of ending a marriage.

[heartwhole2]

As for finances, we're still working that out. He did hire a lawyer (and unlike me, who made a point to tell him in person, he just told me in a text). His original offer included some funds that he always said were a huge disappointment, so I said, obviously I don't want the funds that you said were bad, and he flipped out and tried to mansplain to me and my lawyer why I had to take the weird funds and not any retirement or deferred comp (several times). My suspicion is that his house loan is collateralized by them, so he can't split them, but he hasn't owned up to that.

So I hired a financial expert, who told me I definitely do not want the weird funds, and actually STBX's business counts as a marital asset that he must compensate me for. Well. That has not gone over well. Last time I saw him, he asked me where things were with my lawyer, and I said, oh, we're just waiting on your good faith estimate of the value of your business and then we'll have our draft proposal ready, and his hand started shaking and he said, "I've had to hire a forensic accountant to declare that the value of my business is zero!" And I said, well OK, but that makes zero sense. You could argue it's not a marital asset, but either way, its value is not zero. So that's just a waste of money, and it sounds unethical to hire someone with the understanding that they'll value it at zero. And I pointed out how I had been acting in good faith, how I had told him in person about my lawyer in person and he just sent me a text, and how the broken trust between us is entirely on his end. And he looked like he had a spasm or something and then croaked out, "Could you say that again?" It must have been a huge adrenaline dump that made his hearing go out for a second. So I don't know what he is hiding, or why he is losing his mind, but I also know that it is not my problem. The lawyers will figure it out.

I mean, obviously I knew I was fabulous. Obviously I knew that I kept our family together. Obviously I knew that I protected him from his worst instincts. But I didn't expect him to fall apart on so many different levels so quickly. Knowing that his girlfriend is just as self-absorbed and a bald-faced liar to boot just adds to the overall hilarity. The OW from ten years ago actually seemed like a really sweet person, not someone who is weirdly not attached to her own children. 

So it's easier not to be a heartbroken mess when he becomes less attractive to me by the minute. At some point, I'd like to have more compassion for him, but I've had to incorporate so much information so quickly and at this point, I'm stuck a bit in schadenfreude. To think he was such a martyr when he had me waiting at his beck and call. So then he runs off thinking he'll have his happily ever after, only to tell me he misses me and send me his medical test results, wanting my sympathy and analysis. (He never once showed any interest in my results.) He thought he could throw out the words "we grew apart" and then start "dating" someone literally the day after he left me, and people would just think that was totally normal and healthy. When I confronted him, his first response was, "HEARTWHOLE2, we're SEPARATED" like I was some kind of idiot. I said, well you can explain to everyone how you waited two whole days to sleep with her; I'm sure that will clear things up. And it was only as he started contemplating other people's opinions of his actions that he started to realize it would look like an affair (because it is an affair). 

But don't worry folks. If you thought I never got an apology, I did! A week later he texted me, "Things wash over me slowly. You didn't deserve any of it. And I'm sorry." So obviously he put so much thought and effort into that that I feel all warm and fuzzy inside. On our wedding anniversary, he texted me, "I'm glad you married me," because that's exactly what I was sitting there thinking . . . I'm so glad I married this man who cheated on me twice and then abandoned me without telling me what was really going on or trying counseling. I mean, really, I can see why he was so outraged that I thought I did all the emotional labor, when he is so good at writing very short text messages that completely fail to contemplate how the other person might be feeling about his adultery and abandonment.

Sorry, just stuck at home with COVID writing a novel here. I know I will better off. He limited me and overlooked me. He had all of my loyalty and love and support, and he threw it away, and then he thought that maybe after he had irrevocably initiated a divorce, maybe then he should think about how he might have saved the marriage. Because his life is falling apart so much that even he is wondering if he made the wrong choice. 

I don't want my daughters to have a broken mess of a father. I hope he gets his act together. When he was first diagnosed, I did a lot of tonglen meditations . . . breathe in his pain, breathe out peace and comfort. I said, "May those who still love him make him feel safe and loved." I'm trying; it's not all snark, all the time over here. But man is he giving me a lot of material for snark . . .