Marriage Builders
Hi all,
a collegue of my H who is on my side just called me to warn me that H is thinking of applying to a job abroad and to be gone from Sept 2010.
H had mentioned this to me back in August when A had not been discovered yet, but after the A I thought that H no longer desired to move. However I was wrong. He still intends to go.
OW will not be able to follow because her 2 kids are bound to stay in this country as her XH will never allow them to take them abroad.
At this point this might tell me that H is not that much into the OW and used her as an exit A to leave the M.
Also, I am now very worried as the house loan comes out of my salary. As of now I have free use of my H credit cards and he makes more money than I. However once he leaves the country I will be stuck with the house loan even if I am pretty sure H will not want the house to foreclose and will therefore contribute to his half.
What should I do? Use my IM to contact him and tell him I want to sell the house or want to set up an account where loan comes out of his salary?
Since OW does not seem that important to him I am very confused about what my H logic is (if there is any logic in what he is doing?)
Why go thru all the ugliness caused bty having an A with downstairs neighbor for 18 months while living with us and create such an ugly situation if he was planning to leave the country all along?
This is so crazy and makes no sense!
Blessings


I vote for this: " Use my IM to contact him and tell him I want to sell the house "

You can never live there again anyway so I would get out from under it. As far as his reasoning, I have no idea.
OK, I will have to formulate an email to my IM in a way that H understands
1-I want to sell the house
2-that the footwork to sell is not totally up to me ( I no longer live in that house or that town and do not intend to commute back in forth to take care of the house sale while he could easily do that since he still lives in the same town and this is the tricky part....)
Any suggesstions on how to word it nicely to him?
Why not lay out a plan to get the house up for sale and put the onus on HIM to get it ready and be available for the showings? Tell him you can't go back there because of the trauma of the situation.

You don't have a LSA that spells out what WH is responsible to pay?
The tricky part is to get a response from him. The last time I mentioned selling the house to him in an email (we were not in plan b yet) he never responded.
I think he will be ok selling as long as he does not have to do the work.
Also, the people interested in buying are the downstairs neighbors and they know of H's A with the neighbor. So H would be pretty ashamed to talk to them.
However, I too, am not delighted about any interaction with the neighbors.
I could word the message this way.
Dear IM,
please tell H that I would like to sell the house. I had it appraized at $XXX. A while ago the neighbors downstairs approached me telling me they would be interested in buying it.
Given the trauma of the situation I do not spend time in the appartment and the fact that you want a separation not I, implies that you should be responsible for contacting the neighbors telling them the sale price and beginning negotiation with them. Otherwise a real estate agency could be used and you can select one and make contacts.
Furthermore, the mortgage of the house comes out of my salary I therefore ask you from now on till the sale of the house to have your salary accredited into Bank X instead of into Bank y, so that the mortgage can equally come out of both of our salaries. We can then both put X amont in bank y for expenses.
Let's not delay this process as the house is the only thing in common we have at this point and I would like to see it resolved very soon an move on with my life. (not sure about this as with plan B we want to leave a door open...)
Thank you

Any suggestions from the MB-ers?
blessings


Atena, I think you should look into filing for divorce and getting yourself protected legally by settling these assets before he goes. That way, if he doesn't come back, you can go through with the divorce. If he doesn't go or if he comes back and you want to reconcile, you can drop the divorce.

But, he does not have to pay part of the mortgage or cooperate with the sale of the house unless he wants to, unless it is mandated by a court. Even if he would agree to pay part of the mortgage, he can stop at any time. And what will you do if he is out of the country?


Divorce is very very expensive here in the country where I live and you have situations where people never ask for it and stay married even if they have been living apart for years...just to not go thru the cost. And the person who askes for the divorce, by law, pays all the expenses. Given he is the one who is kicking me to the curb...I sure do not want to pay! Plus divorcing here means being legally separated for 3 years and then after those 3 years divorce can be filed.

I would rather have him cooperate. And you know what...we can forget about selling to the neighbors and just go thru a real estate agency...that will save us some grief..What do you think?
blessings
I like your idea of going through a realtor and then having your attorney send him a letter if he doesn't cooperate. Perhaps the realtor could contact the neighbors first and faciliatate a sale?
H has immediately agreed to contact real estate agent, paint the house and take the steps to sell it! This is good!
However, I am still wondering, in case it is true he want to move overseas and OW will very unlikely be able to follow, why he engaged in the A to begin with. My mom thinks at this point he did not leave me for OW, he left me because he was unhappy in the M and wants a fresh start.
That hurts to hear because there is OW and he has been seeing her for 18 months behind my back. So I am still convinced she played a big part in the demise of the M. If she did not, why would H go thru all the sh*t of the A if all he wanted was his freedom. Couldn't he have just filed for D and move out without having to have an A.
Does anyone can shed light on this logic of his? Does anyone have/heard of a similar experience?
blessing
Originally Posted by atena
My mom thinks at this point he did not leave me for OW, he left me because he was unhappy in the M and wants a fresh start.

That's a pretty awful thing for your mum to say! OF COURSE an 18-MONTH A would adversely affect how your WH views your M! What on earth is your mum thinking...??

Oh, I know...she also added that it should make me feel better to know that he did not really prefer her to me and that he is probably just using her. Of course she does not condone his behaviour at all...but she truly believes my H had been unhappy in the M for a long time.
In a way, being a woman, my mom, who is now about 80, she might still believe that it is a woman's fault if she "can't keep a husband".
This makes me sad, however, yes I am convinced that the A must have had some impact on him leaving me.
Plus, he has not moved yet and might not move at all as he gets more and more involved and in love with her.
blessing
Have what is known as an exit affair. Get you to divorce him.
Road, I think you nailed it down:
This is what I found by googling exit affair:

Exit affairs are meant to be discovered. A man or woman who is unhappily married may use an affair as the way to leave the marriage. Less afraid of their spouse�s anger over the affair than they are of the conflict of trying to fix problems within the marriage, the affair provides the reason for the marriage to end.
[..] the dynamics of the affair itself will provide the support the exiting spouse needs to pull away from the marriage.
As the affair progresses the adulterous spouse may even feel that their affair partner is their �one true love� or their �soul mate� and this gives them even more reason to want out of their marriage. Unable to directly confront their spouse, they let evidence of the affair act as the catalyst to divorce.
If the dynamics of the exit affair go as planned, the betrayed spouse will initiate the divorce [..]
In an exit affair the betrayed spouse may direct their anger at the other person in the affair instead of focusing on the adulterous spouse and the issues that brought the marriage to its end.
The exit affair provides the means to an end. It is the excuse for a marriage ending, but not the real reason the marriage comes to such a painful end.

I think this fits the picture. H has always had me take initiative for everything...and I am sure he waits for me to initiate the D. This will not happen.
I can't believe how sleezy he is...and yes, by being so evident in having the A with the downstairs OW and the neighbor all telling me how blind I was not to see it... well I can only think that H was actually hoping for me to find out!
What a jerk!!! I just can't believe it.
Thank you TheRoad!

Blessing
Originally Posted by atena
H has immediately agreed to contact real estate agent, paint the house and take the steps to sell it! This is good!
However, I am still wondering, in case it is true he want to move overseas and OW will very unlikely be able to follow, why he engaged in the A to begin with. My mom thinks at this point he did not leave me for OW, he left me because he was unhappy in the M and wants a fresh start.
That hurts to hear because there is OW and he has been seeing her for 18 months behind my back. So I am still convinced she played a big part in the demise of the M. If she did not, why would H go thru all the sh*t of the A if all he wanted was his freedom. Couldn't he have just filed for D and move out without having to have an A.
Does anyone can shed light on this logic of his? Does anyone have/heard of a similar experience?
blessing

First off, of course he left for the OW. He never wanted to split up until his affair started. And secondly, yes he was unhappy in the marriage, but he never left over it.

Atena, you are overthinking this. You will never know the true reasons behind his thinking and they make no difference in the outcome.
Originally Posted by atena
Exit affairs are meant to be discovered. A man or woman who is unhappily married may use an affair as the way to leave the marriage. Less afraid of their spouse�s anger over the affair than they are of the conflict of trying to fix problems within the marriage, the affair provides the reason for the marriage to end.

Not that it matters, because all affairs are alike, but your H did not have an exit affair. He told you up front he wanted a divorce but lied about the reason. He didn't ever use the affair as a reason to leave the marriage, in fact he did one of the best HIDING JOBS I have ever seen in all my years on MB!!
I don't know Melody, at the end, when he took that 2-week vacation with her it was pretty evident what he was doing. Of course when I asked him if he was going on vacation with someone he said no....but I guess that is the whole point: he wanted me to discover it and get angry...not me telling him.
I guess when I think of exit A it scares me because I think R then is impossible.
blessing
Originally Posted by atena
The exit affair provides the means to an end. It is the excuse for a marriage ending, but not the real reason the marriage comes to such a painful end.
This is complete first class bovine excrement. This was clearly written by a wayward. Some of the other points may have some validity but this one doesn't. For example, some waywards may in fact purposefully get into an affair to get out of a marriage when they are too spineless to deal with the conflict of trying to fix the marriage. But what does this say about these people? Not only do they lack character to face a problem and make any attempt whatsoever to solve it, they turn around and do the cruelest thing they could possibly do to avoid it. This is someone who gets in a minor fender-bender and, when they see their paint is scratched and don't want to bother taking it in to get fixed, they pull out an automatic machine gun, blow up the car, the car they hit and the driver of that car!!! Waywards are scum of the earth, but this type of wayward is the lowest of the low.
So yes, this makes my H the lowest of the low. His behaviour is really revolting and the ease with which he plows thru life as if he had done the greatest thing ever!
Wow. I am so hurt by this all....I really should stop thinking about it otherwise I am going to make myself sick!
blessing
atena,

Just want to chime in here as well.

The term "exit affair" was invented by a wayward.

That's the only explanation for such a framing.

Unhappy spouses communicate their unhappiness to their spouse and attempt to get a resolution -- via divorce or separation, if necessary -- without resorting to an affair. The affair is due to:

1. Non-exclusive needs-meeting (what people around here often call "poor boundaries", but AFAICT that's not really a MarriageBuilders concept)
2. Love Bank balances with the affair partner(s).

The desire to divorce or separate is due to contrast effect (comparing the spouse against the affair partner, and since the AP relationship is based on a fantasy, real life cannot compete) and a low Love Bank balance for the spouse. You went to Plan B to force his affair partner to meet all of his needs.

If you can believe the wayward -- which I don't recommend! -- that the affair is over, then Plan B served its purpose. It forced the affair partner to meet all of your spouse's needs. And she failed, as is normal in the vast majority of affairs.

But you knew going into it Plan B is a chancier thing than Plan A. Affairs are disastrous all on their own. He created this disaster in your lives. He may turn around some time... but then again, he may not. Protect yourself.

Don't allow "exit affair" justification to cloud your thinking here. If he was unhappy, sure. But his affair was the immediate cause of your separation. No matter how he or anyone else chooses to rationalize it, his choice to have an affair made a mockery of your marriage, the affair is the cause of it, and if you chose to reconcile, no matter his purported reason for having the affair, the solution would be the same.

1. Become experts at caring for one another.
2. No love busters
3. Spend at least 15 hours a week giving one another undivided attention.
4. Radical honesty.
5. The Policy of Joint Agreement.
6. Exclusive need-meeting.
Originally Posted by atena
So yes, this makes my H the lowest of the low. His behaviour is really revolting and the ease with which he plows thru life as if he had done the greatest thing ever!
Wow. I am so hurt by this all....I really should stop thinking about it otherwise I am going to make myself sick!
blessing

Say no to mental masturbation!! Nooo

grin
Atena, Doormat made an excellent observation. Why would the possible ending of the affair cause you to conclude that the affair was not the reason for your breakup instead of the obvious, which is Plan B? You have now been in Plan B for what? 2.5 months? That is plenty of time for him to discover that his affair is untenable. What is he supposed to do? Tolerate her bratty kids? He no longer has you to prop up the affair. He does not have that refuge anymore. Nor does he have the excitement and FUN of sneaking around. His affair is all out in the open!

Doormat is exactly right, exit affair is nothing more than [Linked Image from i29.tinypic.com]

Originally Posted by Doormat_No_More
1. Non-exclusive needs-meeting (what people around here often call "poor boundaries", but AFAICT that's not really a MarriageBuilders concept)

BB, this very much is a KEY MB concept. While the word, boundaries is not used, the concept IS. It is called extraordinary precautions and would include such boundaries as never spending the night apart, no opposite sex friendships, not allowing a member of the opposite sex to meet your needs, etc. It is to eliminate the conditions that could make an affair possible.


Where DO you come up with your icons? Priceless!
Don't ya love that one? He cracks me right up. I ran across that one years ago on a fitness forum.

p.s. catperson, I am so sorry to hear about your mother. frown
I highly suspect, but I am not sure, that OW is still keeping A secret from her mom, priest and her XH and maybe even her kids. So they still have some excitement there. The neighbors and the neighborhood knows but they keep to themselves and might not have told her that they know. Of course my H knows but he is cunning and might not have told OW that neighbors knew all along.
I no longer live in the same town nor I know her XH or her mother who lives yet in another town. So for me to expose her would mean having to do a lot of investigation and put lots of time into commuting to the town where I used to live, go to the house where I used to live and where the A took place and risk to run into H and OW which would constitute a huge trigger for me and ultimately make me sick again.
In other words...I would hurt and they will demonize me.
I think I really have to let go, stay dark and accept that for now it is what it is.
On my H side...everybody knows...including at work where I also exposed him to the big boss. She is also victim of an A so I know how she thinks...
blessing
© Marriage Builders® Forums