...you don't think if I say "her number is xxx, and she would like you to contact her", he would get mad thinking I am trying to "bait" him???

i gotch!thats why i think you should at least offer but hey-don't listen to me-you and i are in the same mess

Oh Eav, we are in the same mess but I appreciate your input! Thank you! Does anyone think otherwise??

Okay, I sent the email. I said

"If you are busy on Sunday, would Saturday work better for you to spend some time with DS2?

By the way, DS2 is in counseling and his therapist suggested that I let you know. Her name is XXX and number is XXX. She asked me to give you the info so that you can contact her"

I hope I put in a right way! And IF H is thinking of how to spend his Sat night with his new girlfriend or something, I hope my email reminded him of his sweet little boy - who is now in counseling! But I know, it is asking too much for him to feel guilty about that. H would not have been doing this if he really felt guilty in the first place.

so now a thought...if he says he can't make it on sat

you know where he lives...you could watch and see what he does/where he goesandmaybe find out for yourself

true, but if I ever catch him with another woman, I may go out there and hit him in the head with a rock so I don't know if it is a good idea.

but milk

you've got to know the truth. if he is seeing someone-that is why he's not working on your marraige. and if that someone is married-better yet...youcan find out who she is and tell her husband.

right now you have little power and few options if he is seeing someone and you don't know becuase as i can tell you from the wise ones here and from my own experience "as longas an affair continues,there is no hope for your marraige" WHAT IS IT THAT YOU WANT MILK? I THOUGHT YOU WANTED TO SAVE YOR MARRIAGE? if i lived near you i'd go with you! i don't live near you do i.

anyway...the famous words of my mother that i didn't believe "men don't leave unless they have someone to go to" she was right-she usually is

me...I'd be there with a camera

Thanks Eav, I know you would! And you know that I would be there holding a camera for you too!

Actually H just called me. See, the fact he does not reply by email is another fishy thing... But anyway, H sounded (or was he just pretending?) a bit concerned about DS2's counseling. H said

"hey, so what is the deal about DS2's counseling?"
"well you know, DS2 has gone through a lot and this is to take care of his emotion - I have taken him to the session twice now"
"but what is she saying?"
"well there are obviously signs that DS2 is suffering from this.."
"like what?"
"like his clinginess, he has been having a hard time being dropped off, etc. So we might be doing a play therapy"

And I explained a little bit about it.

Then he said "okay, I will call her when I get a chance"
This was a surprise to me. So at least he did not think I was baiting him, which I wasn't!

Then he was going to hang up so I asked him "so which day would you like, Saturday or Sunday?"

Now please LISTEN TO THIS. H said in a kind of nervous voice "you mean, Saturday during the day??"

After that he said he needs to go in to work for both days. Now then WHY did he say during the day? Wasn't he supposed to be working?? BINGO! I asked him why he is so busy and he said it's just he has so many things to do. SURE.

So something is definitely up. Oh, also H said "you know, going forward I can take care of him during the weekday instead of weekends..."

What, he is not too busy with someone that he does not want to spend time with DS2 during the weekend?

I am evil! I just sent another email "actually if you are working during the day then Saturday evening would work. do you want to do that?"

H is SO wrong if he thinks I will make this easy for him...!!!

i like you more all the time milk!

actually, it's great that he cared enought about your son being in counseling to call you to talk about it.

did he reply yet?

Nope, I am sure he is working really hard to come up with a better excuse as to why Saturday evening would not work for him...., after all, he said he would be working BOTH days, Saturday and Sunday that is. So he can't say now he has other things to do! Liars must suffer.

Oh my goodness, can you believe this???? H just replied

"MILK - this is a brutal week for me so we will just have to leave it open ended. I don't want to commit to something I cannot keep."

H is the one who wanted to see DS2 before going to CA next weekend!!! And I just LOVE this part " I don't want to commit to something I cannot keep". Is he talking about our relationship??? He made the committment to stay married for better or worse 12 years ago! He was so happy to have our child!! He surely is extremely bad at committing to something he cannot keep. In a normal world, we call it "an irresponsible, self-centered jerk who cannot keep any of his words".

Open-ended? So I am supposed to be waiting for him to decide? Or DS2 is supposed to be just hanging around "just in case" H comes to see him?

I won't be replying to his email. If he comes on Sunday evening and if we are not around, that would be his problem.

i'm sorry milk

you are right not to wait around. this comes from my memories of waiting around for hours for him to come to spend the day at the pool only to have him call later and say-i thought you'd know i wasn't coing cause it looked like rain. and this happened more thatn once. each time i sat here waiting. each time i was here when he called. each time i made him think i was not upset-no big deal.

didn't get me anywhere

how'd you do with the "nothing personal" card and the fishing kit? all ready to go and wrapped?

Well that is the thing, if he does not come, then we cannot give him the card and the fishing kit. I am not sure, I will go ahead and wrap the gift, sign the card, and need to think about it. One evil thought I have is that to bring the gift and card to his apartment on Sat evening.... I think OSXgirl would probably advise me not to...

I don't know, I have to think about it. Any suggestions?

i'm eagerly waiting to read the responses.

Me too!

I do not want to call H during the weekend to check on his schedule. That is totally against the 180 plan I am trying to do, right? So, unless he calls me by Saturday evening to let me know whether he would come by on Sunday, I would not know. If he calls by then, I will give him the present on Sunday when he comes by. Otherwise, should I just wait until we meet next time, which can be in two weeks? By then actually DS2's birthday is coming up (I need to start planning for it!). Of course I am planning on inviting H to DS2's birthday party. Anyway, when should I give him the gift then?

Another thing - I am thinking of retaining the lawyer I liked and start the legal process. I don't want to, but now I feel that H might be with someone, he has a greater insentive to spend our money (even though he does not have access to my account) on her. And I do not want to feel like a fool. I have waited long enough too.

While I am doing the paperwork inviting him to DS2's party seems a bit odd. But there is no other way around it, right?

That is totally against the 180 plan I am trying to do, right?
I know what the 180 plan is. Do you? I take it you are very familiar with Michele Weiner-Davis and Divorce Busting?
(But wait, can you file for divorce AND DivorceBust at the same time??? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />)
Why is calling him against the 180? Does you calling him get him upset?
Sounds as if he wants contact and he is not getting mad when it happens.

am thinking of retaining the lawyer I liked and start the legal process
What exactly are you going to tell your lawyer to do?
Seems as if YOU are not even sure he is having an affair and yet you are starting a divorce?
Why not go to Plan B?

Thanks for your input Chris. I just came home. I went to visit a family introduced to me by my friend. The husband is a pastor and he and his wife have three children, and the youngest one is about DS2's age. I did not have a lot of expectations, I just went to see them - but I actually had a good time and DS2 had a VERY good time playing with other kids (there were three more adults and a total of seven kids). And usually DS2 is very clingy and especially with someone he has never met before, he would never go anywhere without me, but tonight while I was talking to the pastor and his wife, the other guy took DS2 out for a very long walk so we could talk. I couldn't believe that DS2 felt comfortable enough to do that!

When we came home there was a message from H - JUST for DS2. From the beginning till the end, there was no mentioning of me, it was strictly for DS2.

"Hi, DS2, this is your papa. I love you and miss you so much and cannot wait to see you (sure, but you are having fun with whoever tomorrow night! what about that??). I have your toy car here so when you come here next time we can play together okay? I love you very much and be a good boy okay. I love you very much and I will see you soon okay"

In a way it pisses me off that H deliberately excludes me. That is so disrespectful. Who the h*** does he think he is??? H has walked all over on me and he still does it.

So the good mood I had by visiting the family is gone. I feel that I just keep losing respect for this man. He is so low. After meeting those people tonight, now I remember how "normal" people usually behave. Maybe I spent way too long with H that I started to feel that his behavior was normal.

Anyway, it is a good thing that it's very late so that I could not call H back or anything. I will just go to bed and by tomorrow morning hopefully I am calm.

"Why is calling him against the 180? Does you calling him get him upset? Sounds as if he wants contact and he is not getting mad when it happens."

Chris, my calling H regarding DS2 does not upset H, that is true, but usually H always screens my calls. And if I leave a message about DS2, he would pick up or call me back. If I talk about us, which I haven't done in a while, H gets upset. So this is a LB and I am not doing it.

As for H's having an affair, again, true, I am not sure and without hard evidence I can never say for sure. But I am pretty sure that something is definitely up. In the past whenever H was lying and hiding something from me, I could tell something was wrong. So I believe my gut feeling is pretty accurate. And I am not saying that because of my gut feeling that I am starting a divorce. I just feel that the longer I wait the worse it becomes and the more H gets detached. And also if indeed there is a possibility of H having an affair, that can influence H's motivation regarding D greatly, and I feel that I should protect myself financially beforehand.

PlanB I do not see much impact on someone who is already so detached and determined to divorce. I think H may say "thank you for letting me go and helping me feel less guilty by not having any contact with you at all". Every time H calls home he completely ignores me and basically he is doing his own Plan B.

At the very least he is having an EA in his head. Ignoring you is his way of getting under your skin. The good part of plans A & B is you don't have to let him get to you as much.

So, if he calls for your son, let him babble. Your son is young and will just babble back. LOL!!! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

If your son calls someone or something else 'dada', bring it to his attention. Heck do even if your little one remotely says something close to dada. LOL!!! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Remember you and your child are a 1 pkg deal. Once in a while remind your Ws of that. He will have to learn that he can't go on ignoring you. Your child will pick up on that sooner than you both may realize. That c/b used to your advantage.

take care,
L.