"Cognitive dissonance. This was a phrase that Dr. Harley introduced to her. It's holding two opposing ideas or beliefs, and the dissonance it creates in your mind. I think it defines her right now."

My IC talked about this in relation to my wife's A. Explained to me with analogy of smoking --

You know it's bad for you, and will probably kill you...but you keep doing it anyway. Why? Becasue in the short-term it feels good...you block out the long term ramifications. At some point in time you hope that person comes to their senses.

Zen, be strong my friend. Keep taking care of your kids and protect yourself from the insanity that is coho.

And be prepared for her to come crawling back to you. Stick by your decision to head to Plan D. You gave this your all...now move forward.

I don't think she'll come back to me. I think she'll just move to the next guy when this one collapses and so on and so on. I think she'll rationalize all this just so she can look herself in the mirror. It would be hard for a smart beautiful 34 year old woman to say, "Yes, I have two failed marriages and 3 children that I left behind, but it's all for the better and it wasn't my fault." I'm sure I'll be portrayed as a controlling jerk or whatever. I had a long conversation with the OM's best friend's wife yesterday. She called their relationship 'toxic'. He swears to his friends that he and my wife are not together. Why would he hide it from his friends? She also said that he has been involved with the ex-girlfriend off and on up until about a week and a half ago (when I gave Coho the boot). Coho vehemently denies this, says it's gossip, etc. It'd be funny if I was the vindictive type, but it's mostly just gross and sad. It's sad to see her so self-deluded. It's funny to see two pathological liars clinging to each other's lies so desperately. I guess I was very self-deluded every time I took her back. Starting to think a lot of our life together was self-delusion. When you are being lied to so much, you hear what you want to hear.

Her mom said she's acting like a whore, but when Coho confronted her, she denied it... I'm tired of all this 'he said, she said' stuff. It's way way out of the scope of what I want in my life. I'm tired of half truths and lies and rationalizations. I'm tired of living the daytime TV talk show drama. I want this just cleaned out of my life. When I rise above all the sorrow and anger, I feel really good about the future.

I've had a rough couple of days. Very depressed and starting to get really angry. Coho threatened to counter-sue me for custody after I told her that I'd fight to my dying breath to make sure OM never sees my children. This made me extremely angry. I told her by all means, do what you want, I can outlast anyone to protect my children. And I will. If you think I hung on to the sinking ship that was my marriage, wait til I am protecting my children. I'll never give up.

Based on this new news, make sure all evidence you have of her affair(s) is NOT in your home! A bank safe deposit box would be a good choice.

Do you have enough money saved up to buy one of those cute little islands for sale? That would be a great life for a kid!

Wow, Zen, that's a turn of events from Coho saying she would be willing to sign anything if she were to step outside the marriage. Do you have that thread copied on your hard drive?

Anger is good. It's the next step in the grieving process. Don't deny yourself the right to be angry.

Ha, yes, that'd be nice, but I like my home even more. I'm sufficiently protected and motivated to fight anything she attempts. The attorneys already have pages upon pages of her own words and my own journal entries tracking her time away from the children, her admitted drunk driving, ridiculing me to her OM, her admitted coke use and the coke use of the OM, her admitted scheming while leading me to believe we were working on our marriage, money spent on their affair with joint credit cards, her own admission of physical abuse, her own admission of cheating on her husbands 5 different times, several character witnesses against her and the OM, etc etc etc. Some of this will have more teeth in a legal battle than others, but they're all grains of sand on the scale according to the attorneys I've spoken to. They feel confident that I will get what I ask for. To keep it from turning into a drawn out battle, I will make a settlement offer that puts the children's interest first. She will have a fair amount of time with the children assuming she can meet some lifestyle benchmarks. She'll get out of this with far more than she deserves, assuming she agrees to a few things. If she fights, it will get very nasty and that's where you see determination like you have never seen from me.

Oh yes, I have that whole thread and this thread in the hands of the attorney.

Good to hear you are protected Zen. I hope you have great lawyers!

I live down the street and was friends with a couple who split up about 4-5 years ago. She woke up one day, turned to him and said "I'm done." He was sort of shell-shocked so he said "ok, if you're not happy and I want you to be happy, I'll move out to an apartment, you stay here with the kids."

And then she got a lawyer.

And then he got pissed.

There wasn't infidelity involved as far as I know but the bottom line? She lives with her mother in a small apartment 3 towns over. He is back in the house with the kids. And despite owning his own successful business...

..she pays him alimony and child support.

He spent a fortune on lawyers but he said it was worth it. And he also says if she just would have kept the lawyers out of it and not tried to sue him, he would have given her just about anything she wanted. He just wanted the kids to continue their lives as normal as possible in the house where they grew up.

I LIKE this man. We should get him on the D forum

LOL. I'll let him know. He's a great guy. He's had some very hard knocks lately--besides his ex-wife. He really deserves some happiness.

My posts have been kinda boring lately compared to the absolute insane nature of some of my more 'exciting' moments during this ordeal. Last night it got kinda exciting again, but mostly just weird.

I was hanging out with the whistleblower's boyfriend last night. He's a good guy and it was nice to just be around friends. At some point I suggested we go to the bar where this whole thing started, where the whistleblower works. There were two reasons I wanted to go: I don't want to live in fear and anger over this forever. I want to be able to go anywhere and feel OK about it. This was a pretty good place to start because it's literally where the whole mess started. Also, I kinda hoped the OM would be there because I wanted to see this person and put a real face in front of him.

I got there and the FIRST person I ran into was his best friend, who was very drunk but obviously weirded out by my presence. We exchanged a polite greeting, and I went in. We ended up sitting with his wife, with whom I've spoken a couple times, including two days ago when she confirmed that the OM has been with another girl off and on through a lot of his relationship to Coho. It was pretty awkward for a little bit, and the best friend got driven home because he was drunk. I sat and talked to the OM's friends for a couple hours. Very very strange, but they were nice and we didn't broach the obvious topic.

Then, sure enough, The Dude walks in. The whistleblower's boyfriend had quite the bone to pick with him and immediately started yelling at him. He ended up pushing him back out the door, where the OM was taunting both of us. Whistleblower's boyfriend got really angry and pushed him against the wall, yelling at him. He cooled down and I told him I wanted to talk to the Dude. So I did. For about an hour and a half. IT WAS STRANGE. It was the most polite and contained confrontation in the history of this kind of confrontation. He was shaking like a leaf the whole time with a quavering voice. My half of the conversation was mostly telling him my end of the episode and telling him a whole lot of stuff that seemed to surprise him. I'd say, "She's crazy, she's lying to both of us..." He'd say, "I'm starting to see that..." I think he was listening and believing a lot of what I was saying, but he would counter with a lot of what she has told him. As expected, they're both up to their eyeballs in rationalizations. He kept trying to convince me that this relationship was OK because she was going to leave me. I kept telling him that it wasn't OK, and that he KNOWS it. His denial is hilarious. His best friend's wife called their relationship 'TOXIC'. He told me that I was making this stuff up. Wowza. Anyway, I think he was actually listening and absorbing for awhile, but then he would go back into rationalizing. Very much like Coho. At several points he was almost looking for sympathy from me. He spent the majority of the conversation trying to prove to me that he's a nice guy. He didn't make a peep in defense of Coho, which says VOLUMES to me. I told him over and over that he would not be in my children's life and at first he was saying that it probably meant the end of their relationship if that was the case. Again, trying to gain sympathy from me, while saying, "I'm not looking for sympathy." Over and over he said he did not want to be in the kids' lives and he understood why I would feel that way. His exact words, "I don't want to be a dad. I don't want kids." Total weasel, total wimp, totally uninteresting. He spent so much of the time trying to make me believe that he was a nice guy, it was hilarious. Very spineless. It's so telling that he didn't say a single nice thing or come to Coho's defense. Hopefully she'll see that he is as selfish and spineless as she is.

They deserve each other. He chooses to believe her lies, knowing they're lies. She is pathological. There is no other way to describe it. I'm sure it's a magical relationship they share.

Anyway, there's no way to get these two to see outside their lies to each other and themselves. It'll just have to burn itself out. I need to just cut myself away from this mess, except where it effects my children. He will never be in their life. He doesn't even want to be. What an awesome guy she found. Funny thing is, she knows it. Only a spineless weasel would keep taking her back after all this. I'm glad I stopped being that person.

Wow grats on keeping your cool around om, he sounds crazy tbh.

Not crazy, just very self-deluded and weasely. I feel sorry for him as much as anything else.

I expect you'll get an earful from Coho. Which will actually be good as you will now put a pin to her balloon of a love affair. You will be able to say, you were happy to hear that he isn't interested in meeting your kids or being a father. And you can wish them well because they deserve each other. A pathological liar and the man with no cajones. Now that you know the enemy and found out he was weak you can dismiss him. And I am sure that it shed a light on what kind of woman Coho has digressed to.

Strangely, she didn't say anything when she dropped off the kids. Maybe because I had told her that I'm done talking, but who knows. I don't really care. I told the OM that she'd counteract anything that I said so they could just keep going. I'm sure that's what happened. They want desperately to believe their lies.

I've never been threatened by him, and yes, he lived up to that. He seemed relatively intelligent, but emotionally immature, like my wife. He seemed very spineless and scared. His comments about the kids were pretty sorry. His attempts at covering his a*s were almost laughable.

I saw a little of myself in him too, which was bizarre. He appears to be an extreme conflict avoider, which I have been all my life. I feel like this is one of the BIGGEST lessons I'm learning through this. I think Coho has found that conflict avoiders are easy to manipulate. I don't think it's even conscious behavior in her, just instinctual. Poor sucker.

Part of me wishes I had learned this several months ago and saved myself enormous pain. But, I think this was all necessary so I could learn my lesson and finally see her for who she is, instead of trying to make her into something else. Now I can move on feeling better about myself, and with a wealth of knowledge about this process, marriage in general, my own weaknesses, what to watch for in others.

Wow -- one of those ah-ha moments. I feel the exact same way. Perhaps this pain is not all in vain. Perhaps something good and joyful will come from it for you, Zen.

Wow, ZW, I'm so impressed with where you are at the moment. You're doing so well, and clearly growing as a person too.

That's the thing with a terribly painful event. You can either let the experience devastate you or you can let it strengthen you.

We can all see the direction you are taking and it is to your great credit after the things you have been through.

Stay strong ZW and keep coming here for support when you need it. You have many friends.

Its a sucky lesson and sometimes you can live without the cynicism, but you are doing well grasshopper

{{{zen}}} Me too.

Zen: I'm glad you are continuing down the path to help ZEN and your CHILDREN! Good for you!!!

Are you continuing with counseling / therapy? As much as we here at MB.com like to help and assist you, a good counselor would be the right place for you to assist you in the healing process.

Strength to you friend. Keep up the strong work.

And for the record, I don't believe I could ever sit down and have a cordial conversation with my wife's OM. Would probably be words or blows, or both. I was once afraid of his military background...now I'm not. He does pack heat, but take that away and fire up some rage in my soul...it would be bloody.

Strength.

Oh god, I got the crazy CRAZY irrational babble talk from hell today. Fully back in rationalizing. Telling me I'm being overly dramatic and I'm "reveling in my toothache a little too much." What an absolute monster. I wish I had never met her. I can't even describe how angry this makes me. To try to minimize it after what she's done? She has no soul. I am furious.