Thanks again, Aphelion.

BTW - Don't suppose you know what happened to WAT, do you? He went on holiday, came back, posted some, and then dropped off the face of the earth.

Hope he's OK.

Edinburgh is great. One of my favourite cities. Never been to St. Andrews, though. I can't play golf, either! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Alph.

Oh, I can play golf. Just not so well.

I was told you have to have a lot of balls to play St Andrews. So I didn't push it.

Added: No, don't know a thing about WAT.

LOL Pebbles... I guess we had the same insane excuses hurled at us huh???

So in order to justify "loving" the OW, they have to justify "not loving" us. OK. I wld have thought it would have been more the truth if they said they do love both. I mean if they can "fall out of love" from their spouses within x number of years... when will the same thing happen again with the OP's? Then what happens? Tell current OP the same fog-speak and find another OP?

~A

I went to see my solicitor today, as WH is planning to begin D proceedings over the summer break.

She was very positive - said that I should get at least a 70/30 division and I should also be entitled to spousal maintanence, at least for a couple of years. Child support is mandetory at 20% of his salary.

If I get all this, it will put extreme financial pressure on WH and the A! I can't imagine them having any fun at all. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

WH said to me the other day: Alphin, I can't afford to get divorced. I think he will find actually being divorced even harder!

We also talked about the children, and his access to them. My solicitor said that basically, whatever I reasonably wanted for them was the way it would be. As I have been a SAHM for 11 years (with the odd part-time job here and there) there would be no doubt that I would get full custody if I wanted it, with WH having limited visitation rights including a couple of overnights per month. If I wanted to offer WH shared custody, that would be up to me.

I told her that I was not going to allow the children to meet OW until we were divorced. She will be writing WH a letter formalising this.

All in all, I was very happy with the way things went today. My solicitor was very supportive, and made me feel quite confident about the future, whether it has WH in it or not.

He came around again today, and took DD5 to a party, and DD12 into town to buy birthday presents for FIL. He didn't seem quite as resentful as he has been the last couple of times - I guess he's making an effort for the children. I am still very angry, though, and didn't speak to him. I know that's bad. But I did try and make myself look nice, at least, for whatever that's worth.

But the more I think of it, the more WH seems to me to be a cancer that I want cut out of my life.

Less than a week until I fly away from all this - I'm counting the hours now, truly.

Alph.

Alph

In the midst of chaos I spent a day doing the following:

* Secured my own and the kids passports
* Set up parallel bank accounts and transferred across all funds fromm the main accounts. Set up a DD to leave exactly as much as required to repeat monthly bills in the old ones.
Stopped Squids transfer (I always transferred £300 per month to Squid s account just as 'petty cash'.)

* Cancelled all cheque books and ordered a new one from my new account.
* Saw the CAB about my rights re: divorce ( worse for me that you, sadly back then)
* Called a friend in Dubai and secured a job with an associated visa that I could take up at a week's notice ( there is no extradition treaty with Dubai, nor a CSA exchange order).

I got home and felt much more able to soak up the venom.
If I got sick of it all, me and the kids would be in Dubai with all my assets within a couple of days and could stay there for a year before I needed to apply for residency.

I never had to invoke that radical plan thank God.

It wasn't long ago that I told Squid this. And she was upset.

My point is taking practical contingent action is good. Its like securing a safety line.

Well done Alph.

Thanks Bob.

That was some plan you had there! I'm so glad you didn't have to go through with it.

I really like my solicitor - we talked a little, woman to woman. She shook her head and tutted at WH and his antics. She even said, almost under her breath: 'It will never last' - referring to his A.

I should have asked her to put that in her letter, too! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

It is good to know that things will be OK for the kids and me. And I might still escape from the country, just like you were planning! But not for a while.

Alph.

It takes careful planning Alph and ABSOLITE secrecy as one call from WH to the customs authoritie and you will be blocked at the gate.
Tell you what, if you ever need to plan it, ping me...

I was two phonecalls away from going. Sad but comforting when you're in teh sh*t.

I know you have a horrible sit with WH living away, but just for a moment imagine what it it was like for me.

Squid was unbelievably spiteful every possible opportunity. Vicious, scathing, openly taunting me to OM on the phone.

Constantly playing the 'love' CDs OM cut for her. Horrible to the kids, foggy as a November day in Southampton.

No desire to stay with me, every desire to humiliate me.

Me - plan A'ing, not lovebusting soaking up the spite, carefully reverse babbling like orchid taught me...

Not saying its WORSE than having a WS move out Alph, but it was F'kin' hard I tell you that.

I needed a plan to get out of it if it got too much.

I think, when the WS leaves, it is worse - but only at first.

I can't imagine, because I haven't done it, the pain of living with a WS deep in the fog. Knowing she wanted to leave, knowing she had (temporarily) forgotten about you and her kids.

But, although WH has done many things that have hurt and humiliated me, now I'm over the initial devastation of 'being left' - the aching loneliness, the intense vulnerability (the first week he left, I obsessively checked the locks on both doors, time and again before I went to bed, and even then dreamed about the house being broken into), at least I am removed from the chaos. Things are better now when he isn't here than when he is. I used to long for him to come and see the kids, long for him to come and talk (even if it was about divorce) and hate it when he left.

Now, I can't wait to see the back of him. When he's here, it's unsettling. When he's gone, I'm free. I play and put stupid music on (ABBA!!!) and dance with the kids. When he's here, my life stops again. He goes upstairs with the girls to DD12's room, and I sit downstairs, pretending to read a book, but really just waiting for him to go so I can get on with stuff!

I can see how things will just go up and up for me in plan B. I've been stuck, I realise, between plan A and plan B from the start. Plan A was so hard, especially when you are exposing too. WH has told me that he hasn't been speaking to me because of the exposure - whenever he came around here, I had to try and counter that. Not that I regret the exposure. I'll never regret it.

At least I could lovebust in private, when WH had gone back to Omelette! I would bite and punch my pillow, pretending it was WH's head. I always had an escape from the pain and chaos - my privacy; being alone.

How you lived with all that crap I'll never know. As I say, it's worse than death to be left. But you get over it. I am getting over it. I think if WH had stayed, and behaved like Squid did, I would have thrown him out myself.

Things were 'too much' at first. I did want to run away. Now, I even think I could face it if I met them together in the street ('PUTA!!!'). I don't like this city - never have much, but it's home to the girls. I would like it if WH and OW moved further away. But even their close proximity doesn't bother me like it did.

It's empowering to have been treated so badly, and survived. I'm pretty sure nothing else quite so bad will ever happen to me again, so what is there for me to be afraid of? Nothing.

Sorry for the rant. Sufficient to say: I'm glad I didn't have to live with the poison like you did - it moved out and festers even now in the septic lovenest. Let them enjoy it together.

Alph.

Alph, sorry this is kind of a threadjack....

I have also come to the point where I don't think I'd die on the spot if I ran into WH and MOW in public. In fact, I think I'd introduce myself.

To WH: "Hi, WH! I haven't seen you for a while, not since I had to take you to COURT for CHILD SUPPORT."

To MOW (quite loudly): "Hi, I'm Pebbles, WH's WIFE. You must be his MISTRESS! How is your HUSBAND?"

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" />

Alphin, to the Omelette, looking her hulky body up and down 'Ok, I guess he's with you for the conversation, right?'

Alph.

I have a really witty and clever line prepared for when I meet OM in the street

OM; " So, we meet again Bob"
Me "..."

* sound of me kicking him in the bollocks 147 times.*

Ugh, I never want to meet OMM again.

My previous two encounters with him were precisely like what I read in People of The Lie:

"The feelings a healthy person experiences in a relationship with an evil one are revulsion and confusion. Revulsion is the God-given and saving early radar system.”

It was as if I suddenly lost my ability to think.

The second encounter was when I confronted him right after D-Day 2. I was somewhat prepared and just delivered my message without letting him engage me.

But the first time was twelve years ago when FWW introduced us for the first time, right after their A started. Weird, but I felt it then also. I just did not know why.

Pebs - I gotta admit, that is darn funny!

Not sure if this is a TJ or not, but wanted to chime in here:

My WXH left on D day and never came back. I can well remember the bitterness, and the anger I felt every time I had to deal with something around the house.

Like the time we had a really bad freeze and all my pipes froze for 4 days. We had no water to flush the toilets, or take a shower, or even drink. After four days, things began to thaw, and then one of the pipes burst and I had water shooting up from the pump house outside. I was trying to figure out how to turn the water off, and my son was calling around,trying to find someone who could help us, and all I could think of was "how in the hell can it be ok for my H to take off, and live with OW plus her 2 kids and leave me here to take care of the house, the kids,the cats, and the dogs all by myself. Why is that OK with ANYONE?

It is a question that no one will ever be able to answer.
Because it is not OK.
And eventually it comes back to haunt them.

So I don't know if it would have been any worse/easier on me if he had stayed home for awhile like Sqid did with Bob. At least if he had stayed home he could have helped out with the "man chores". As it is, I lost a lot of respect for him in a short amount of time when I was forced to become mother/father/councelor to the boys all at once.

But the upside for me, just like you Alph, was the ability to act like a kid again around the house. I used to turn the music up loud and dance around the place. I painted the rooms, and put flowers in vases. There were some truly fun times. We put up a tent in the yard and slept outside.

Hang in there Alph.
I hope you have a fab time on Holiday.

Aphelion
I am doing well in recovery. WE are doing well in recovery.
Yet I still carry a baby sledgehammer and a can of mace in my car and always the faint hope that I might run into OM.

OMs life has been frankly terrible this past year - me exposing his affair, his GF making his life a waking nightmare as a result, his YS11 discovering his affair and hating him for it, the tragic death of his estranged son , the death of his mother, the nervous breakdown yet I can still almost TASTE the delicate flavour of me smashing seven colours of shi*t out of him in a dark car park somewhere.

Scary thing ? Part of me really thinks I'd recover better if I just did it and got it off my chest.

Alph you could curse OW that she always has hairy armpits, but she wouldn't notice <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Hi WOF5 !

At least if he had stayed home he could have helped out with the "man chores".

Squid did NOTHING towards the running of our lives during that period. I was mother , father and protector, cook , domestic and entertainer. Thank GOD my boss gave me a sabbatical for a month.

Squid was an infection in our lives then.

So, Bob, can you tell me what you really want? LOL

LOL aphelion ! It makes me laugh too ! Its good to have a nemesis ! All good superheroes have nemesisisisisises ! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

The grass is always greener, I guess. By the end, I was thinking at least three times a minute that everything would be so much easier if he would just leave!!!

Alph -- you seem stronger and more confident after seeking legal advice. At least you know your financial options now.

I too, won't be able to last as long as b0b if WH was still staying here. It just got too much for me, and I had to go into survival mode. He wasn't interacting with me at all and it was as good as already abandoning me while still staying here. It slowly got better when he left, even though I miss him. My appetite came back, and I cld sleep better.


wof5 - I had just one anger/breakdown recently. I had to get a new cable set-top as WH took ours away and I tried to fix them myself. I hooked them all out correctly but didn't know how to track the signals on the TV. It made me so mad. With myself and my WH. I so very much wanted to NOT DEPEND on him anymore but felt that I still needed 'a guy' to come help fix that stupid cable TV thing. I bawled my eyes out in the bathroom....

Anyhow, we all have to stay strong and know that things will get better. One way or the other!

~A

b0b, you have a style all your own! Would you use the mace and mallet at the same time? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />


I have met the Omelette, but this was pre-affair. I guess it was just over a year ago. I wish I could remember more about the encounter, but I can’t! I remember thinking: ‘Geez, she’s tall,’ but that was about it. She seemed perfectly nice, but yes, very tall. And big. I certainly didn’t get any ‘evil creeps’. Guess my radar is well off!


Hello, WOF5! No, it certainly isn’t OK, although WH keeps pretending it is, and gets upset and indignant with anyone who suggests otherwise!

I truly hope it does come back to haunt him. Heck, I still feel guilty about old boyfriends from my teenage years! I do think that WH, or rather H, is a good person. I can’t believe that he will live the rest of his life not regretting what he has done. And if he does, well I guess I was dead wrong about him, or the person he used to be has died.

I will have a great holiday, too. Thank you! It’s darn hot in Spain at the moment, tho… <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

Ashley,


You poor thing! I had a little more luck when WH took the X-box I bought him for Christmas away. We’d been using it as our DVD player, so when he left I had to re-connect the old DVD player. I was successful! All I had to do was plug in the SCART lead, but I did it!

I can change lightbulbs, unblock drains and change fuses too. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Well, it’s raining here and there’s nothing to do. Kids are camped in front of the TV, and I’m going to do something girlie – dye my hair.

Alph