I spoke tonight with OW's MIL. She has not told her son (OW's H) about the incident (see post "Can I help OW's 4 year old D?"). She's afraid he'd be too upset. She's been urging him to get custody and not let OW and my H see his D while they're busy using drugs. But he's afraid of my H's money. He's just a 22 yr. old kid like OW, my H is almost 50. OW's H is afraid my H would kill him in court and he'd lose his little girl entirely. <P>I think I talked his M into going to legal aid herself or calling OW's M who loves her only granddaughter and OW's H but has little to do with OW at this point, even gave OW's car, which her grandfather had bought for her, to OW's H after she left with my H. OW's M doesn't know about this incident either so hopefully the two grandmothers will do something to protect this helpless little 4 yr. old.<p>[This message has been edited by LetSTry (edited June 26, 2001).]

That's wonderful. Very Solomon-esque. That what I suppose I wanted. The other posts were great, but you have shown that extra measure of integrity by combining helping the helpless with taking a position of righting the wrongs of the other 'so-called' adults. Having said that, please don't get too proud of yourself, all you did was the right thing. Keep that up. Be the force that equalizes with love. Thank you for being you. I feel better for all of us now. God bless you.

Thanks, w_f_h, I agreed with you but knew I had to do something. But you were right that I need to stay out of it as much as possible. <P>At this point, I'm not even sure what I want from my H, but I definitely don't need to complicate things any further. And what if something I did ended up causing the result that OW's H fears most - him losing his little girl, when he's the primary parent? He's right, my H would fight him hard in court, just like he plans to fight me, and he's very convincing. He's got his lawyer believing all sorts of lies, including the story that he's not using drugs or alcohol - and she, his lawyer, has 15 years of sobriety!

Your concern for the other victims is laudable. I suspect that this type of behavior is typical of you, which makes your H's actions all the more curious. I suppose that MLC fog can even wipe that away. Such selfishness! Its a pity, but like I said, I believe that we need to show that extra bit of integrity to balance out their lack.<P>I think you are torn, that's why you don't 'know' what to do. I took my divorce as a wake up call from God. I am moving closer to him, because I need him right now. I need his grace, strength, and conviction. I need his help, too. What I really crave right now is peace, and stability, but those are my responsibility, not God's. I always flinch when I say, '...grant us peace.', because I don't feel that God does that so much as we do by knowing our actions are doing his work. Right now, all you want from him is to quit the OW, drugs, and his self-involved/destructive lifestyle, and return home and be a proper husband. That's not much, really...this is not sarcasm, but it is more than he can do right now, so you claim to 'want nothing from him.' You see, marriage is truly all or nothing, but you want it all, you only say that you want nothing in the hopes that it will be true. It isn't.<P>Did I recommend Restore Ministries to you ? <A HREF="http://www.restorem.org" TARGET=_blank>http://www.restorem.org</A> is the link. They use the Bible for guidance there, and it gets results as well as anything I've seen...Divorce Busting ( <A HREF="http://www.weiner-davis.com" TARGET=_blank>http://www.weiner-davis.com</A> ), this site, A Complete Marriage, etc. I have some materials from Restore Ministries, and you are doing what they recommend. Let me say that you need to quit talking to others about this because the negative talk about him/her/their deeds is not right. It does not make them stop, nor does it hold them accountable, but it does reinforce a negative image of your H in your mind. This man is NOT your H, so don't make that comparision. Spend your time, rather, becoming the woman YOU want/need to be, but don't be selfish about it. Once you have done that, God will send you a man to be your husband if that is what you want, and it is in his plan It may be your H, maybe someone else, but be careful of the first to arrive, he is probably not THE ONE.<P>If you are not religious to any great extent, feel free to substitute your subconscious mind for God, the 'math' still works; it is not dependent on someone else's opinion. I have studied the brain and religion for over 20 years as an amateur wanting to know, and this is my conclusion:<BR> The Bible is RIGHT...written by man for man...maybe divinely inspired (definitely in parts), maybe some of it not. You can, as I said, take God out of it (if you think it wise...I do not.), and it all still makes sense.<P>Your strength is the conviction of your character, which, as you are finding out, comes at a dear cost. Do not waste it. Do not let the fruit of your effort and pain die on the vine. Go out there, and do something. You are appalled, no doubt, by the blatant disregard for life and love displayed. Rather than talk it to death, rather than lose time and energy ruminating over it, go do something to equalize it, like you did with the little girl. I'd avoid the OW's H...there's a chance that you two might end up in a relationship that is not proper. Can you volunteer to talk to other women in your situation, or (wo)man a teen crisis phone line? Almost anything will help, and maybe you'd get to feel good for a change? That is a bargain at twice the price.<P>I am praying for you, I think of you a lot. I respect you based on what I have seen, and that says a lot about you. Feel good about yourself for a change, and smile. You have touched me through a medium that is devoid of any ability to do so. You can touch your H, too, but you have to hang in there, this fog is trying to envelope you, too. Don't let it. God bless you. Take care.<p>[This message has been edited by waiting_for_her (edited June 26, 2001).]

w_f_h, Thanks for your support. My H thinks I'm the devil incarnate. I know this is a combination of guilt and what he needs to do to separate himself from me, but it's still hurtful. <P>The all or nothing of marriage as you describe it is exactly right. I can't have what I want right now, so I want nothing. Thanks for the link. I'll check it out. I feel much closer to God now that I gave up the self-deception that I had some control over my H's life. <P>There is no danger of anything inappropriate developing between me and OW's H. He's 22 years old and I'm almost 50. He's a kid to me, makes me feel motherly, and definitely not my type in many, many ways. I feel for him because I know what he's going through but I would never seek him out to talk to. There's really nothing more we can say to each other anyway.<P>I've been going to Al-Anon 3 times a week for several weeks now and there are opportunities to do service there. I also started exercising at a gym for women about a month ago. And I'm running a business with about 25 employees, which keeps me pretty busy.<P>You're right again about quitting the negative talk, it just keeps me upset and encourages a victim mentality. I'm feeling less and less like a victim as time goes by.

That's great! I am pleased to hear that from you. You are doing all you can/should. It will be interesting to see the new you unfold from the trial, I look forward to that.<P>You run a company?! Gim'me a job! (I have to say that to everyone these days! Money is non-existent, and bills are piling up! Seriously, though, you run a company? Wow, what does this company do? Sounds very impressive to me, I have a hard time ru(i)nning this company! <P>Time is your ally, and you will get better every day. (most of them, anyway!) Go to the site, and be comforted some. Then go about your life with a new, fresh outlook. God bless...I care.

w_f_h, The way my H and I got into this business is by God's grace. My H and I are both nurses. He lost his RN license about 15 yrs ago for stealing narcotics and shooting them up at work. He still didn't get clean and sober for several years, and when he did, it still took him several more years to get his license back. In the meantime, we moved to the country. He was on probation at 1st, which meant that he couldn't work alone and couldn't be in charge. He applied for job after job and was turned down because of his past.<P>Finally, he got hired by a woman who ran a business like we now have, an intermediate care facility for developmentally disabled adults with nursing needs (that's the official name - we take care of profoundly retarded people with numerous physical problems, mostly wheelchair bound, all incontinent, only one talks a little) but only as an LVN (some states call them LPNs) at less than 1/2 the pay he'd made before. <P>I encouraged him to swallow his pride and take the job because he hadn't had any nursing job in years and could use this job to prove himself. He soon became the RN there after the RN she had hired began trying to do exorcisms on the clients to get the devil out of them that he believed was causing their afflictions. <P>After a short time, the owner's husband needed a liver transplant (maybe the reason why was the reason why he encouraged his wife to give my H a chance) and the 2 of them left for a hospital in the major metropolitan area from which we'd moved, and left my H in charge for 3 months. From this experience, he felt that he could start the same business on his own. So we did.<P>We found our first house for the business very serendipitously. Then, when we decided to expand, we discovered a piece of property catty corner to ours, facing another street. One of our employees lived next door to the business and when she and her husband decided to move their trailer to a larger piece of land, we expanded again. Now we have a 7.5 acre piece of property with 3 houses, the last two we built, with black-topped paths joining all the houses for walking, wheelchairs, or golf carts.<P>It is really a great place, if I do say so myself, and my H would have never given it up for anything but drugs and alcohol. He denies both and even denies to his parents, whose trailer he's living in, that he's living with OW. He says he's alone there trying to get his head straight. That would be nice, but it's not true.<P>We lost several other staff members around the time my H left because of their drug use. My H had used drugs with at least some of them. We have been extremely short-staffed with everyone working 90-100 hrs every two weeks. I was kind of panicking about it, but when I turned it over to God, we suddenly started getting applicants to our ads.<P>I have to trust in God because it's the only way my life really works. I just always seem to forget and try to take back control and then nothing works out as I plan it.<P>Doesn't sound like your kind of work, huh? And the commute would kill you. <P>I already am getting better every day, though I still go through periods of deep and not so deep depression every day, I also have periods of great gratitude for my blessings, for this site, for Al-Anon, for my friends and family, for my employees who've been so loyal and helped me pull us through this hard time, for the beautiful place I live, for my current good health after going through a mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation, and reconstructive surgery just two years ago, for the opportunity to see that I'm capable of running this company since my H always maintained control while I backed him, and I'm even grateful for my new slim figure (thanks to the infidelity diet!).<P>Thanks for caring.