As a man when my wife left me with the five kids, it was very easy to initially cut her access to all of our bank funds. She was spending money on hotel rooms to spend time with him, buying him meals, and other things. That is most likely normal in alot of situations, be it men or women that are having the affairs. The following day I was able to freeze all the assets, and open new accounts that she did not have access to. I was also able to take my cheques and have them direct deposited into the new accounts. Indirectly be if good or bad she has only had limited financial support from me since she left. But she is still with the other guy, although I have told her I would support her in getting a job/apartment/on her feet if she broke off all contact with this other man. She has indicated she understands this, but still is choosing her present situation over the options I have given her. My question is for any ladies/men that are stay at home moms/dads or have limited income to support themselves, what were you able to do to ensure your children and you were fiancially taken care of while your husband/wife was off screwing around? Were you able to freeze the money, or move it around as soon as you found out what was going on? I see this as a very tough situation because if he/she supplies the finances via work, he/she can really control alot of this, which can make a person feel that they are trapped in a situation where they really need to get away. This may be a good opportunity to help some people that need some time away from their spouse that had an affair to determine how they can handle this.

Unfortunately most of the time all you can do is file for a separation of property to protect yourself, and even then what you receive depends upon the courts. <p> K

Since I have always made more money then WH this is not someething I can help very much with but I did want to bump it up for others that might be able to.<p>Music

I did nothing. I was a stay at home mom for over 14 yrs at the time my STBX started his A, 3 yrs ago. That yr I was working part time 1st time in 14 yrs.<p> after being told he wanted to leave & that I would never be able to support the boys, I found a teaching job. Suprised the dayslights out of STBX. He didn't think I be able to do, I did, was rehired for the next yr but we, moved overseas, so I gave up my very safe teaching job to follow him overseas to the job he thought he had always wanted.<p>Major mistake in ever way possible.<p>While we overseas STBX sent the OW at least 2K a month, meet her in Europe, & other places.<p>In the 2 yrs the A went on before we seperated STBX most likely spent between 30k & 50k on her OW, this does not count eating out, phone calls, etc, this her living expenses, trips, jewlery, etc<p>My lawyer advice me to take all the money when we returned to the states last summer but I did not. STBX took what he thought was his half, it was a little more.<p>Now he is paying me through the nose, or so he says. Before it is over it might get nasty when I try & recover some of the money he spent on her, tutition, and replacement of appliances that were sold when we moved overseas.<p>So what would I do if I could do it over again. After the 1st yr when he left the hospital & went home with her, & left me to tell our sons daddy wasn't coming home, he be there in a few days. I changed the locks, take the money and have his clothes sent to the office. and file for divorce.<p>I saved me & my sons, especially OS a lot of pain & grief and lots of MONEY.

Sing thank-you for the response, sad that it went on as long as it did. I hope another person can get something from this and help themselves. I do not want to portray that finances are the most important thing as they are not, but I know that the choices I have made have been alot easier because I am the person theat brings home the money in our house. At the same time I feel that if I had an affair on my wife , it would be alot harder for her to push me asside financially to take care of herself and the kids. In a round about way she would be trapped to a certain degree. Hopefully some more people reply with some more advice.

Hi, <p>Post this to Redhat. He had a stay @ home W. She is the Ws. <p>I believe that cutting off any family funds that could be used to fund the A is valid. Even if this means putting them on the streets. <p>I am the W and my H is/was the Ws. In our case, I make more $ and when I stopped paying for his bills, he quickly saw that their 'love' was not love of person but love of $$. As long as the OP could see the WS trying to be with her, she kept dangling out the promise of great profit with many benefits. More than I could do because I have family obligations (she had no children, worked from home and her H gave her spending $$). Of course by all outside view, she was the better catch. But it took 2 to have a child and sharing the expenses also needed to be divided into 2. The OW did not want that. <p>So I sent him/let him go be with the OW and that for me was a good move (since the PA already happened and it was getting old). That broke the spell. It tried to last a while longer but I told H that this was getting too boring for me and I had no problem if he needed to be homeless. <p>Woke him up in a NY minute!<p>L. <p>L.

As for me I was lucky.As you all know my marriage was on the way out when the ex came to me and told me she was leaving.There was no affair here just weak personality on her part. Anyways it was an oppurunity to get out of a bad situation and I took it.I told her there's the door don't let it hit you on the way out and don't come back. I never went back and never looked back.Best move I ever made in my life.There was no financail problems here in terms of money for I was laid off with no money and she was on a disablity pension so she could look after herself. The only thing I regret was being between jobs for if I had a job ,me and my girls would be the ones leaving as soon as she told me she was. I pay my monthly child support and thats it I do not give her one cent more and made sure she could not. I give the kids money and they don't tell mom cause she would search the house looking for it for herself(she has taken money from them from time to time).
As for my GF her ex has yet to give her any money and he was the one that left her,and left her with all the debt.Now there is a battle brewing there and it will unforunatly be messy for her.<p>231

Finances can always be a major dynamic in how the affair plays out.<p>I was a stay at home mom for 10 years. I did work out of my home doing a little home computer repair and tutoring and quite a lot of web development. But my income was never stable or substantial.<p>When my H moved out, things got very tight - he still supported us, but he needed money for his own place, and of course, the OW needed jewlery (which I had never been given) and she needed 300 dollar dinners (which I had never gone on) and she needed vacations in Cape Cod (a vacation for me? Never!).<p>For us, what really was significant was that his OW found his money to be a major factor. She dragged him down to a new bank and got him to open a bank account that I had no access to. She constantly harangued him about supporting me. His financial support of me was a huge lovebuster for her and subsequently they fought about it all the time [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img] Can you say helping my H out of the fog? [img]images/icons/grin.gif" border="0[/img] <p>Just recently, I was clearing out some files and I found a copy of a letter that my H's OW had typed up - she had wanted my H to send it to me, but he never did. Even after all this time I saw RED when I picked up that letter. This OW actually thought that my H only owed me the same amount of child support that SHE got from her exH . Never mind that in NJ, child support is formula based on income. She also thought he didn't owe me more than a year or 2 of minimal spousal support - again, thats not what I could have gotten under NJ law as a long term marriage and a stay at home mom.<p>Anyway, I'm going on longer than I thought about this. What I really wanted to say was that yes, my decisions were limited because of finances. My H made all the money. My only choice (with my justified fears of the OW's influence on my financial wellbeing) was to file for divorce. There's no legal separation in NJ, so its divorce or nothing. <p>Honestly, hindsight is 20/20. I now know that filing for divorce was probably the best thing I could have done in my situation. My H had no intention of completely abandoning me financially, but he also knew he wasn't going to be able to afford what I was reasonably going to be able to ask for in court. Trust me, I had done my homework, interviewed many attorneys and was headed towards wringing every dime I could out of him because I needed it to survive alone with 3 kids, a house, a dog, a cat and no career.<p>So even though he was the financial heavy hitter in our relationship, it was stilll the pinch of finances that helped get his attention, helped end his affair, and ultimately was one factor that resulted in our reconcilition.

Oh and I just had to add this little ironic twist to my story:<p>We've been in recovery since July 01. My H lost his vice president position in October, related to the massive economic down turn in the NYC area as a result of Sept 11. Unfortunately, my H works in the Information Technology industry which was already struggling before Sept 11.<p>He's been unable to find another job - through absolutely no fault of his own. His severance and our savings ran out a couple of months ago. Fortunately this stay at home mom has alot of computer skills herself, along with a old secretarial background [img]images/icons/grin.gif" border="0[/img] <p>I had absolutely no problem getting a job - a computer savvy administrative assistant is in HUGE demand! Not only that, but I got offered an outrageous salary at a fantastic company. I still make 1/3 of what my H did, but ....<p>My husband is now the stay at home parent and I am now the financial heavy hitter in our family! I do sometimes shake my head at how weird and ironic life can be [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img]

You know both me and the GF works and we good money between the two of us.I make twice what she does but I'm not very good a finances,not to say I'm stupid but I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer. She on the other hand does very well so even though I 'm the heavy hitter when it comes to the income I beleive our greatest strenght here is her ablity in this area, the same as where mine is building and repairing just about anything(except nuclear reactors or warp drive heheheh) [img]images/icons/grin.gif" border="0[/img] I've trusted her sense of money and has proven me that it is well placed. You're right sometimes live throws you a twist that does make your head give a shake.<p>231

It absolutely is largely about finances. I was a SAHM when my H left, and although I long ago returned to work, I do not earn nearly enough to support our six kids. Financially speaking, it would have been far better for me to have done whatever was necessary to ensure that the kids were taken care of financially by him. A year after he left he lost his job, and has been unemployed for two years. The children receive little child support and we are living in poverty, while he is supported by the OW who recently apparently bought him a new expensive car.

I was a SAH mom during my first M and had not been in the work force in over a decade. Since it was a long-term M, under the law of the state I was in, the children and I were entitled to support to maintain the lifestyle to which we had become accustomed. I was awarded spousal support for life. I did not need to get a job. I could have lived a very nice life if I had remained single. Only marriage would end my spousal support, so my subsequent marriage was the best thing that could have happened for my ex-H as it put a whole lot more $ in his pocket every month.<p>And this was a no-fault state, so if I had been the WS, I could have carried on an A and my H would have been forced to finance it and support me for life. His only other choice would have been jail. This is why I think there should be "fault" divorce, rather than no-fault, so that the judge can do what's fair and have compassion, etc.

Conqueror;
What state?<p>231

I'd rather not say publicly. Email me. In my case, I think it worked out fairly, since I did not violate the original marital contract. However, if I had been the one violating the contract by being the WS, then it would not have been fair at all.<p>My ex-H, of course, thought it was terrible, but I figure it was his choice to destroy the M and reap the consequences, plus I did him a huge favor by marrying someone else, so he didn't have to suffer for very long. I think he may have had legal recourse if I had cohabitated instead of marrying because he could argue that my SO was supporting me or at least contributing to my support so that his burden could be lightened accordingly.<p>[ May 12, 2002: Message edited by: Conqueror ]</p>

conqueror;
I disagree on that. I know of one husband who tried to do that in court and had the commonlaw spouse put on the stand. Basicially what happened the man told the judge it was none of anyones business what or how he spent his money and the judge agreed.<p>231

Unfortunately in my state alimony is rarely awarded when there are children. The most important consideration in this state is not whether the children can live, but whether the NCP has plenty to live on - and the income of the NCP's affair partner is not taken into account.

Unfortunately in my state alimony is rarely awarded when there are children. The most important consideration in this state is not whether the children can live, but whether the NCP has plenty to live on - and the income of the NCP's affair partner is not taken into account.

231,<p>I guess it depends on the state, the judge, the situation, but I was warned by my attorney that allowing a man to live with me could jeopardize my spousal support. I know in the state I'm currently in, the support formulas are based on household income, not personal income.<p>Another interesting side note is that the state that had jurisdiction over my divorce case sued me for support for my son who ended up in the juvenile court system after after I allowed him to live with his father. I had never been ordered by any court to pay child support, yet because he was in a government detention facility (because of his father's lack of supervision), the state went after BOTH parents and attached BOTH of our wages.<p>And my current H's income was taken into consideration for figuring out how much I could contribute to reimburse the state for my son's support while he was in their custody. Fortunately, they also considered how many children my H and I had to support, so I guess it could have been worse.<p>But I sure didn't think it was fair that I had never been ordered to pay support by any court previously, and the child was not in my care and custody when he committed his crimes. Plus, I was not informed that he was committing crimes until he was incarcerated and the state sued me. All the times he was arrested (when I might have had a chance to take control of the situation and DO something!), they never bothered notifying me as if I didn't exist, but they sure knew how to contact me when they wanted my $. [img]images/icons/mad.gif" border="0[/img] <p>Plus, I offered to take custody of him myself again and supervise him properly so that he wouldn't BE committing crimes, and the juvenile court judge refused to place him with me or with any other member of my family who offered because we were "still family members" (I assume that meant he was implying that my family and I were somehow cut from the same cloth as my ex-H, but who knows what he meant by that?). [img]images/icons/shocked.gif" border="0[/img] [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif" border="0[/img] <p>So, judges are a wild card at best. [img]images/icons/frown.gif" border="0[/img]<p>[ May 12, 2002: Message edited by: Conqueror ]</p>

Thanks to everyone that replied so far. Hopefully somemore people will reply with how they were able to make it through the initial aspect of having to be on their own, or be able to leave to get some time they needed for themself.

I've been a stay at home mom for years, although I'd help supplement by babysitting and working a psychic line at one point. When I discovered my H's latest EA, it was the straw that broke the camels back. He was also being abusive because he was drinking so much. He wouldn't leave the apartment and I couldn't legally make him leave. I also couldn't take anything but our clothes, kids toys and jewelry out of there even with a police escort. If he said no when I requested something, the police said I had to take it up in court. We stayed at a shelter where I applied for emergency housing and within a few weeks me and my three kids had a lovely home to move into. I bought furniture at thrift stores and started from scratch. I went on assistance and registered for a computer course, which is starting in June. Shocked the s*** out of him because he never thought I'd leave. I swear everything happens for a reason because since then he's become a new man and has been sober for two months now. I got most of the stuff I wanted from the apartment off him, which he brought over once he realized I wasn't coming back there. I wouldn't wish this on anyone, but wanted to share because it can be done and nobody has to be trapped. I'm in Canada but I'm sure there's similar resourses in the U.S.<p>We're spending alot of time together now and things are alot more peaceful. I feel more respected and we're going for counselling together. Someone here said for there to be a break through, sometimes there has to be a break down. That's so true in our case.<p>[ May 15, 2002: Message edited by: roseyhue37 ]</p>