Because now you KNOW. It's a relief to betrayeds to understand what they're really dealing with. LOL. Typical wayward-speak. She wouldn't be trashing her marriage unless she had her eye on something she considers 'better'. So, do this. Get her out of the house, and then see what you want to do after that. Don't decide on divorce either way right now.

Eric,

Do not let her live in that apartment. Don't support any aspect of her life financially while she is having this affair. She needs to find her own place, and she can pay the lease herself.

See if the manager will get you out of the lease, and let him or know that she is not allowed in the unit.

Are you willing to fight for your marriage and enter Plan A, or do you want to call it quits and divorce her?

I made her change the lease, she is paying for all of it.

Right now, I am calling it quits. Working on the asset division. I think I am better off. The memories we had hurt like hell, but I feel like a whole man again. She is definitely not happy about moving into the apartment and me keeping both cats here. I am not dividing those cats, both of whom I love very much. She should have to suffer as I have.

Did you watch those videos? Get some understanding about what is happening.

BTW, it's completely typical for your wife to freak out like that. Suddenly you weren't being cooperative and controllable, so she blew up at you to try to make you be controllable again. Good job on not caving.

Didn't get a chance to watch yet, but today, as we were packing her stuff, for the first time at all, I saw her break down, and start having serious doubts about what she was doing.

We'll see what happens, I am resigned to it being over and have got things in motion, but just taking my time in doing anything yet that is too hard to undo(i.e refi'ing the house, etc).

Eric,
As MB said, don't make a rash decision.

This is a process and it takes a long, long time to recover. One of the biggest mistakes betrayed spouses make is they expect results fast and they expect the process to reach a quick resolution. That doesn't happen with infidelity. It often takes a long, long time for the fogged out wayward spouse to end the affair, and it takes a long, long time for the betrayed spouse to recover from the immense pain and anger of the betrayal.

Keep in mind that many marriages have been recovered using Dr. Harley's principles. They really work and you can have a marriage that is happier than you ever thought possible. Also know that you will get past the resentment and hurt over time if your WW gives you just compensation. Of course, it is your choice.

My recommendation is to let some time pass before calling it quits.

That's my plan. I'm resigned to it being over, but I'm not writing her off completely yet. Mostly now just working on making the financial burdens are fair while we are apart(insurance, cable, other expenses, etc).

Eric, regardless of whether you decide to divorce or not, you should expose her affair. You don't want her to lie to people about the reasons for the divorce and most importantly, if you do get divorced, you don't want her to be able to introduce the OM as someone she met after you broke up. Your family and friends need to know he is the cause of your breakup. Because of that, many people will not allow him to darken their doorstep due to this affair.

The WORST thing you can do is keep the affair a secret. That is bad for your wife and you.

Eric,

You need to expose this affair especially on OM side, include words like adultery on your exposure email. What will happen is that they will feel a sense of shame when they are together and will wonder who told whom. Instead of feeling strongly in love they will being to feel that their affair partner is the cause of their shame. Affairs have a short life and a much shorter one when exposed.

Expose suddenly and completely without threats or warnings to anyone!

God Bless
Gamma

Oh, yeah, I guess I forgot to mention that, yeah, I exposed it big time

Then the guy had the balls to actually threaten me, which was a little amusing.

Read the Plan A and B things, makes pretty good sense, I am pretty much doing those, though by accident, LOL.

I think the biggest thing that is that I didn't cave in to her wanting me to go back to the apartment. I was NOT going to do anything on her terms, she lost that power with the events of this weekend.

I'm pretty patient, most of the time. I'm going to spend the next weeks going to ballgames, going out on the boat with my friends, and maybe a casual date or two.

A casual date or two? Aren't you still married?

A casual date or two? Are you kidding, man?

This doesn't really make sense. You can't have been doing the Plan A things AND Plan B things. One requires actions to win your spouse over and permanently change habits and the other requires no contact with your spouse.

How long have you been neglecting your marriage and wife? It seems so cavalier that you can say you love your wife and be so dedicated to working on your marriage and then so easily thinking about some casual dates just several days later, even in the face of finding out about her affair. I understand how one can be tempted to have a revenge affair because of the hurt, but this doesn't sound like that. It sounds like the result of being emotionally divorced for a long time.

It's Dr. Harley's advice to not date until a divorce is final.

I wouldn't say I have been "neglecting" her or the marriage, but I would say that I was taking many things for granted, and feeling as if I no longer had to work at it to be an appealing person to her. I'd say probably half of our 10 years or more.

What I was saying in regards to Plan A and B, is that I initially did some of the Plan A things, but it's time for Plan B now, which is where we are. No contact other than if it's for financial matters, she is on her own now.

As for the "casual dates", ok, I get that. Maybe I hold off on any of that. I didn't say I was going to start dating anyone this weekend or anything. The truth is I love my wife and do want the marriage to continue, I don't want to be with anyone else.

Has she filed for divorce?

I can see part of the reason why your marriage fell apart.


If you want the marriage to continue, we can help you with that. Your marriage can very probably be saved. But not the way you are doing it.

Until you are divorced you cannot date. If you start dating while still married then this is the wrong place to come for advice. Marriage Builders is about building stronger marriages and rebuilding broken marriages into strong ones. If that is your goal, you are in the best place. If your goal is to further destroy your marriage by dating then there are other places where you will find support.

No, no - please - make no mistake, I want to save this marriage!

I'm not going to date anyone - it's not something I even think I could do anyway. I'm just still scared, confused and have no idea what I am really supposed to be doing. I'm reading all of the stuff on here, so I'm getting ideas, and am going to try my hardest to do things right. I know I posted some things that made it sound like "i give up", but my emotions are all over the place between anger, resentment, sadness, you name it. My mind is trying to survive this, and protect itself, a lot of raw instincts keep kicking in.