I talked with Dr Harley yesterday morning and he doesn't find my husband willing to take his advice and improve our marriage. He said he believes in saving marriages but not at all costs. The fact that my husband had an affair puts him in a new class and he is not willing to work on our marriage. My husband does not want a divorce, he just doesn't want to work at having a good marriage. Maybe the threat of a divorce will be enough to get his attention but maybe it won't. He is very stubern. I called my pastor to see if he would be supportive. 4 months ago he told me to wait. I really didn't know if he would be supportive and didn't feel I could go through with this without his and my church family's support. He is supportive. Then I called my attorney and made an appointment. It isn't till Jan 11. That is a long time to think. I have been suprisingly calm although I did cry a little and my stomach was a bit upset. I wasn't any different with my H. My goals haven't changed at all. I would still like to put this marriage back together. I keep thinking about all the things that will change and wondering what he will do and how I will react. The two major factors are housing and bank accounts.

Here is the housing situation. We own 6 houses. One was his before we got married. It is on the dairy farm and has employees living in it but is very large and would have a room for him if needed. One my daughter lives in. It was purchased with proceeds from my home before we were married and is 45 minutes away and she has it full. There is no room for me and my son. One is rented. One has people living in it on a land contract. They will probably be forced to move, they haven't kept up their terms. We have been giving them some extra time though because the husband had a stroke. It is small, but in our town. The next one we just bought. We are fixing it up. I am the relestate investor. This is the first house we have done together. It needed lots of work. It is not fit to live in. It will be a few months before it is ready. Plus it is in another state. We live close to a border. I wouldn't want to change state residency. The house we live in is large. There is no morgage on any of the houses. The utilities on our home are attatched to the farm and written off as farm expenses. It would be easiest for me to just stay here and have him move at least for starters. The problem arises with the heffers and a lot of farm equipment being here. I can expect my Husband to pull into my driveway twice a day at least to feed the cows. That certainly makes no contact more difficult. Also, my H and his kids have never respected my space or my things. I doubt that they will honor a restraining order to stay out of my house when I am not home. This was his ex-wife's house when we got married and the home the children were raised in. After we were married she wanted bought out so we bought it and moved in. I would like to move but I have a St Bernard, chickens and peacocks that I would like to take with me and it is hard to find place in the country.

This is going to be very hard on my son. My husband is not his biologic father, but he has very limited contact with his natural father. We have been married since he was 2. He also considers his step siblings to be siblings and will miss them a lot. He won't get visitation like if my H was his real dad.

The banking accounts are a bigger issue than would appear at first glance. He had his affair with the manager of his bank. There is only one bank in our town. The next closest bank is 20 minutes away. It took me almost a year to get him to change banks after his affair. I would be vary upset if he changed back to her bank, but there is realy nothing that will stop him I guess. I have been doing the banking since the affair was exposed but I doubt he would want me to continue if we were separated and even if he was willing how would we do it with no contact.

You have time to figure things out. Now first of all it would not be good to live in a place that he and his family have access to. I would think another home would be suitable. Not eveyone will be happy but it would be better if you did move into another home. I myself have realized my M is not working out. There is to much strain here and my H does not want to work on our M.I have decided to be fair and make things easy for him and easy for me. I just want to split everything evenly. Yet I want to be taken care of in this D. Sit back new ideas will come to you. If not the homes you own now how about another place?

I just looked at our local listings and there is one available but I don't know if I could afford it. I will drive by to see what it looks like on the outside. Plus it takes time to put a bid in and get to closing on a house. There are so many unsertainties and things that are going to change.

I've just sat down to put together a future budget and a list of our joint and seperate assets. We have 2 million in joint assets. I know I will be ok. I can't believe I am the one fighting to save our marriage when he has so much to loose.

Yesterday I talked with Dr. Harley again. He is hopeful that a separation will get my H attention, but warned me that there is the very real chance that it could lead to a divorce too.

It is so strange. H had pretty much ignored me for the last 2 and a half days but yesterday he did better which makes it harder to make these plans. In fact he proposed planning a trip at the end of Feb. That's auckward. I would like to go if things are ok with us, but he could very well not want to go with me by then. The reservations will have to be made before he knows I am filling for separation. H has a big problem with committing to anything with me and this is my number one need so it actually softens my heart to him a lot that he suggested it. Dr Harley said to go ahead and make the plans as if everything will be fine then that the trip would be good for us.

Then there was another big commitment that he made yesterday too. We live in an area where the water is sulfer infested. It is terrible. For $3 to 5,000 we could get city water which is my vote but as a farmer H won't consider this option. 5 years ago he bought a culligan system to take care of it which worked well for about 6 months. That cost $3000. Then 2 years ago he had a new well dug. That cost another $3000 but the water was still bad. This year when my expensive frig had the copper pipes eaten up after just 4 years I was very upset. 6 months ago I found out about a company that you could rent equipment from that guaranteed to take the sulfer out but H was not interested in that. Well last night he sighned a contract on a new system that has a 10 year guarantee. We don't pay anything for the first 3 months, then it is $3000. If it realy works that will be the end of one big stresser for the whole family.

It's weard needing and getting commitment from H when I am planning on a separation.